Out of State, Out of Mind
by Frisk15
Summary: Somebody wants Steve out of the way, and the attention of Five-0 focused elsewhere. Now why would that be? And where the heck have they taken Steve! - A story which throws up many puzzles, has Danny reaching the outer edge of his sanity, and finally boils down to one thing: loyalty!
1. Parcelled out

This is a one-shot that came to mind.  
I'm not sure if I'll develop it into a full story, but thought I'd share anyway.

**EDIT: I have received quite a few requests to further expand this story****, so that's what I'll do ;-)  
Please be patient though, as I'm still working on another major story that needs finishing.  
I'll definitely post a new chapter for this story this weekend though.  
Oh, and I'll try to use less exclamation marks *grin***

* * *

1\. PARCELLED OUT

Opening his eyes isn't easy; the left one is swollen completely shut, and the right one is caked over with dried blood. His head pounds something fierce, and his body is sore. No, scratch that; sore isn't the correct description. His body is on _fire_! There's fire when he breathes, and fire when he moves. All his nerve endings feel like they have been seared with a hot poker.

He tries to determine where he is. The bouncing and jarring motion mean he is inside a vehicle, a moving vehicle at that. When he finally manages to crack open his right eye, he sees his feet are tied together with a thick zip-tie. Looking up, he can see his wrists are cuffed above his head, the cuffs linked around steel reinforcement bars running beneath a tarpaulin cover. His mouth is taped shut; he can feel the tight band around his lower face, tastes the plastic between his lips.

Then comes the most important question: what happened?!

There's a memory of being with the team, sitting out near the beach and enjoying a cool beer after a long day's work. He was going to get something from the car - what was it; something for Grace? - and the warm fuzzy feeling of the sun and beer had made him slow; too slow to fully turn as he sensed imminent danger, and way too slow to draw his gun. The next moment he felt himself going rigid and a pulsating sensation going through his muscles. _Taser!_ he knew.

He was unfortunate enough to hit his head on the edge of the curb when going down.

* * *

"Well, that saves me from having to sedate him. Now get him inside the trunk!" Two burly men bundle Steve's unconscious form into the trunk of a large black sedan. The three men look around quickly, get in, and then the car speeds off. The whole affair has lasted less than five minutes.

They stop just outside the city limits. "I need to check on our package" says the slim, Asian looking man. One of the big Hawaiians gets out with him, and they move towards the back of the car. When they open the trunk, the Hawaiian man sucks in his breath. "Ouch; that was a bad fall!."

The material beneath Steve's head is soaked with blood, having run from a large gash just above his right eye, now filled with coagulated blood. His left eye is swollen shut, and the area around it is starting to bruise badly. "Think he broke something?" the Hawaiian asks.

The Asian man doesn't answer; he gently probes Steve's head, causing him to groan. "He might have an orbital fracture, you know, broke his eye socket. But I'm pretty sure that wouldn't slow him down much if he decides to get out, so ..." He pulls a capped syringe from the pocket of his jacket, takes off the cap and sticks the needle in Steve's neck, fully depressing the plunger. "That should take care of him for the next six hours or so."

They close the trunk, then get back into the car. "So what's the plan, Boss?" The Asian man looks coolly at the big man. "We're going to get him off the island, of course. The whole idea is to have him out of the way so we can operate without interference." He chuckles. "His team mates will be so busy looking for him that they won't spare us a second glance."

* * *

The motion suddenly stops, and next he hears a door slam shut. Closing his eye and relaxing his body, he senses the tarpaulin being opened as light filters through the interior of the vehicle.

"Looks like he's still out. You sure he doesn't get too much drugs?" Next he feels the vehicle move slightly as somebody is getting inside. He has to exert all of his self control not to jerk away as he suddenly feels a rough hand moving his head from side to side, the pain sudden and jarring.

The voice next to him belongs to a different person. "Nah, he's fine. This stuff may have it's side effects, but it won't kill him." Before he realizes what happens, he feels the sharp sting of a needle going into his neck. He groans as the fiery sensation in his body increases a hundredfold, then mercifully he sinks into a deep, black abyss.

* * *

He doesn't know how long he's been unconscious, but waking up is not pleasant. He moans at the fire coursing through his veins, eating at his raw nerves. This must be due to the drug they've been giving him, the side-effects the man talked about. It demands his complete attention, makes it nearly impossible to sense anything else going on.

Willing himself to breath through the pain, he manages to slow down his heart rate, push the fiery sensation into a separate place. It's still there but doesn't occupy his whole world anymore. Opening his eye, he notices there is no longer any light filtering through beneath the tarpaulin. It must be night.

There's something else as well.

At first he doesn't get it, doesn't understand why things feel wrong, off somehow. Then he realizes: the sounds outside are different! He is intimately familiar with the night-time sounds of Oahu, the bird calls, the insects. He doesn't hear those here! And with something close to shock he can only reach one conclusion.

He's no longer on the island!

* * *

Please let me know what you think about it, and whether you would like me to expand it.

Thank you!


	2. Lost but not found

Poor Steve. I think he may be lost in more ways than one.

* * *

2\. LOST BUT NOT FOUND

It has been seven days, twelve hours and nearly eleven minutes since Steve has gone missing. Danny knows this, because he has been counting every hour, every minute and every second since that fateful evening. By now the Five-0 team looks like the walking dead; gaunt, pale, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep.

They have searched the island top to bottom, end to end, desperate to find a clue to the whereabouts of their boss, their _friend_.

This past week, numerous criminals have been hauled into interrogation, countless possible leads have been followed up, scores of drugs dens have been invaded, ransacked; they have come close to breaking bones, breaking faces, breaking the _law_ in their anxious search for Steve.

Danny feels he has officially lost his mind.

When Steve didn't return after fifteen minutes, an uneasy feeling had started coiling in the pit of his stomach. How long could it take a person to grab a 'fluffy present' from a car parked not even fifty yards away? Several minutes later and the rest of the guys started to get fidgety as well.

"So where's the boss man?" asked Chin, looking around.

Lou shrugged. "You know him; probably came across a robbery and decided to quickly deal with that."

They laughed, but there was little joy in it. Another five minutes, and Danny got up. "All right, I'm going to check on him. This is taking way too long!" Grace stared at him, and he immediately realized he needed to tone things down.

"Don't worry, Monkey; Uncle Steve probably ran into a friend and has forgotten all about your birthday present. I'm just going to go over there and kick his SEAL-behind to remind him you're waiting for it, OK?" She smiled, and Kono gave her a big comforting hug.

Chin got up as well, following him to the parking lot situated behind the little casual beach restaurant Danny had picked to celebrate Grace's birthday. Steve's old Mercury was parked at the back. They immediately noticed the popped trunk, and both men quickly drew their guns, moving in silently.

"Brah, I've got blood." Chin sounded grim, and Danny moved over to him, looking down at where he was pointing. "Oh shit, that can't be good." There were dark stains both on the curb and on the asphalt right behind the Mercury. Danny immediately radioed for forensics to come out, so they could determine whether or not the blood was Steve's.

An hour later, and the call they got from Max didn't make them feel any happier. The blood was indeed Steve's. Chin started working his magic behind the PC table, but to no avail. The parking lot didn't have any security camera's, and they basically didn't have a clue what or who they were looking for.

The kidnappers - for that is what the team thought they were dealing with - didn't leave a single trace.

Their search continued deep into the night. Danny had dropped Grace off at Rachel's, promising her he would call as soon as they knew more. Lou had gone home to be with his daughter, but the rest had decided to stay at HQ for as long as it took to find something, _anything_ which might point them in the right direction. But they found nothing.

At the end of the second day, Danny was insane with worry, not knowing whether or not Steve was even still alive. When he snapped at one of this team members for the umpteenth time that day, then realized what he'd done, he retreated into his office and closed the blinds.

The following days have basically all progressed in the same manner; searching, following up on anything they think might result in a breakthrough, then at the end of the day coming up empty handed.

As the eighth day draws to a close, they are still clueless.

* * *

He is choking ... choking on his own vomit. As his nose becomes blocked, the little glimmer of consciousness that first pushed him towards awareness is now fading fast. He is only dimly aware of somebody swearing, hands roughly grabbing him and turning him over; then a tearing pain as the tape is ripped from his mouth.

The next moment he continues to be violently sick; he heaves and heaves until he thinks his stomach will come out. Gasping for air, he feels somebody pounding his back, making him cough up phlegm and bile and other unsavory stuff. It does nothing to ease the fiery sensation searing through his body, and he groans from the sheer misery of it all.

Finally the heaving stops, and he gratefully sucks in big gulps of air. Hands grab him once more and he is hoisted up into a semi-sitting position. He still can't open his left eye, and the headache is a continuous pounding onslaught, like waves crashing on a rocky shore. The left side of his face feels oddly numb, and he senses that something is very wrong.

"Holy crap! If you hadn't noticed him starting to choke ..."

The voice leaves the rest unsaid, but he knows that he has just been pulled back from the brink of death; knows that aspirating your own vomit is a sure, and decidedly unpleasant way to die. He manages to crack open his right eye, then shuts it again as the light above him sends a flare of pain through his head.

"Oh fuck, man; look at this mess. Who the hell is going to clean this?"

He opens his right eye again, this time just a slit to keep out most of the light. He's leaning against a tiled wall, and there's tiles on the floor as well. Everything is white. There are two figures moving around his peripheral vision, and when he glances to the left, he sees rows of animal carcasses hanging on giant meat hooks. A slaughter house?

"I don't feel comfortable with giving him more drugs, man. We almost lost him there a minute ago!"

He senses the figures drawing closer, then feels himself being hoisted up again and dragged off; next, he's dumped on what feels like a pile of blankets, keeping him above the coldness of the tiles. He groans as the pain shoots through his head, every nerve in his body screaming in protest. Starting to retch, he brings up nothing except a mouthful of spit.

"Can't be helped; we need him quiet for at least one more day. Just leave his mouth untaped."

As he instinctively realizes what's coming next, he feebly lifts up his cuffed hands, moaning in protest. "No ..." He feels the sharp sting as the needle enters his neck, feels the now familiar burning sensation start coursing through his body; then he spirals down into the abyss again.

* * *

Kono and Lou are sitting at the conference table, while Danny has retreated to his hide-out again; he rarely comes out of his office now. They've basically exhausted all ideas on what to do next. Even with all the HPD officers on high alert, as per personal order of the Governor, they are still empty-handed.

And the Five-0 commander remains missing.

Chin is at the PC table, a grim look on his face. He continues to desperately flick through files, reports, flight plans and anything else which might offer them a clue. Silently muttering under his breath, it's as if he is threatening the computer, coaxing it to cough up something, _anything_ they can use.

Suddenly, he freezes. "Guys, I may have something here."

They rush over to him, Danny stumbling out of his office and nearly breaking his neck over a trash can in his haste to join them. "What did you find?" With shaking hands, tired to the core and exhausted from the worry they all share, Chin moves some files to one of the hanging screens.

"A report from the Coast Guard, filed only this morning. Apparently they gave chase to an unidentified vessel about 100 miles out of the coast of Oahu. It was running without GPS and didn't show up on radar. They were almost right on top of it before they even noticed it. It was probably either a _go-fast_ or _cigarette_ boat, or the newer type, _picuda_, which are completely made of fiber glass."

Lou rubs his head, sighing. "So you found a report on a drugs runner. What does this have to do with finding Steve?"

"Well" says Chin, as he stares at the image on the screen, "first of all, they've never a _pecuda _here at Oahu. And it was leaving _from _Oahu, not coming towards it as you would expect with a drugs run. The CG doesn't have a clue how it got here, it's almost as if it appeared out of thin air. What's really interesting is that this took place just several hours after Steve went missing." He lets the impact of his words sink in, knows he's got their full attention now.

"Why wait so long to file a report; do they have any idea where the boat went?" asks Kono.

Chin moves another report onto one of the screens. "Yeah. The report was filed only today because this morning they found a boat fitting that description scuttled off the coast of Point Loma, California."

Danny stares at the screens. "They look like speed boats. Would they be able to make it from Oahu to California?" Chin nods. "They're packed with three 200PK or even 1000PK engines, and it they have extra fuel and enough knowledge of the sailing and shipping routes to stay underneath radar, I'd say they would definitely be able to make it."

"They took him off the fucking island!" Danny's voice is barely a whisper.

Chin nods. "I think that's highly possible, brah. It would explain why we haven't been able to find any trace of him."

* * *

The sensation of movement is the first thing that filters through. It causes wave after wave of nausea, and he swallows desperately to keep down the bile rising in a throat which feels raw and dry. Feeling like it's taking him hours, he finally manages to claw his way up through the fog permeating his brain.

When he tries to remember, all he finds are thin filaments of memories, shards of impressions. He desperately grabs on to them, like a drowning man latches onto a lifeline; there are images of a sunny beach, faces he can't seem to put a name to, laughter ...

There are other fleeting images, somehow feeling closer in time. Something about a white room, voices shouting; a sense of choking and then being violently sick. And pain, constant pain, as well as a fire that continues to run through his body, searing away his nerves, burning away his mind.

He tries to determine his surroundings, realizes he's lying on his right side on what seems to be a pile of blankets. He feels the space surrounding him is just barely big enough to accommodate his body, senses the oppressive presence of large objects around him. There are no sounds filtering through.

When he tries to roll over, he finds his movements are restricted. Carefully sliding his fingertips forward, he encounters what feels like a chain, fastened to handcuffs. Following its short length he finds the chain secured to a ring embedded in something metal.

Despite more blankets covering him, he is shivering violently. The blankets underneath him feel wet, and the sour stench emanating from the soggy patch near his head tells him he has been sick. His pants are wet as well, and he smells the distinct aroma of urine.

His neck feels like he has been stung by a thousand wasps, and there's a dull, roaring pain in his head. When he gingerly touches his face, he feels the left side of his head swollen, the flesh tender and puffy. On the right side there seems to be a large gash running above his eye; it's starting to crust over.

He doesn't understand any of it.

Has he been in an accident? Then why is he chained up? He tries digging through his mind, desperately searching for answers. He doesn't find any.

Suddenly the movement comes to a jerking halt, causing his head to collide with the metal plate his handcuffs are attached to. A blinding, white searing pain shoots through his head, and he groans out loud. He dimly hears voices, hears the sound of large objects being moved.

"Ah shit man, it smells gross in here ..."

There's more sounds, and suddenly a bright beam of light is aimed at his face, causing him to groan again. He hears the shocked intake of a breath.

"What the fuck ... that guy is almost dead!"

He senses somebody kneeling down next to him in the cramped space, feels a hand running over his face, his neck. His head is gently moved from side to side, still causing him enough pain to become violently nauseous, and he starts retching. He is quickly rolled over to his side so he doesn't choke on his own vomit.

When he is finished, when there isn't even a single drop of bile left to spit up, he is beyond the point of exhaustion. His consciousness starts to fade, the light graying out. Just before the blackness completely engulfs him, he hears another voice.

"We'll take it from here. And you guys better pray that I can keep him alive!"

* * *

Steve really is in heaps of trouble. Hopefully his team really has found some clues, because he needs all the help he can get.

Great if you've decided to come along for the ride. It promises to be another rough one.


	3. A dark place

The team has its hope to find Steve destroyed, but then Jerry comes to the rescue.  
Steve himself is still lost in a very dark place ...

* * *

**3\. A DARK PLACE**

Chin slowly puts down his phone. He finds it difficult to grasp what he has just been told by the Coast Guard officer, and he doesn't know how to convey this bad news to his team mates. How can he tell them that the glimmer of hope he has offered them, the clue they thought would finally lead them to Steve, is based on false facts, on erroneous reporting?

He unconsciously initiates a deep breathing exercise, saved for those rare moments when he feels control completely slipping away from him. It doesn't go unnoticed.

"Cuz? What's wrong?" Kono has come up behind him, places a hand on his shoulder. He throws her a short glance, and she hisses between her teeth. "That phone call ... Steve? Is he ...?"

Chin shakes his head, then swallows. "No, but the news is bad enough. You better call the others, tell them to join us." It takes just minutes for them to gather round the PC table, anxiety written on their faces. Chin doesn't know where to start, whether he will be able to handle seeing the hope they have held on to for the last two days die in their eyes when he tells them.

But tell them he must.

* * *

He becomes vaguely aware of all his muscles tensing, stiffening up, until his body is so rigid it feels like he will break in half. The pain is excruciating. The next moment his body starts jerking uncontrollably, his arms and legs flopping around. A metallic taste fills his mouth, followed by warm fluid, causing his breath to rattle in his throat.

"Shit, he's convulsing again!" The voice is like a scream in his ears, sending a white flash of pain through his head.

He is aware of being turned on his side, then feels the sting of a needle in his upper thigh. After what feels like an eternity, the spasms stop, leaving him exhausted. He recoils from hands touching him, and when something wet and cold is applied to his face, he groans as his nerves howl in protest.

"Shh" screams the voice, and as the pain in his head flares up to an unbearable level, his only option is to retreat into darkness again.

* * *

Danny stares at Chin. He can't believe, can't _accept_ what he just heard. One hand rubs the unshaven stubble on his chin, the rasping sound it produces almost hypnotic. When he looks at the faces of Lou and Kono, he can see the same defeat he now feels.

"So, let me get this straight." His voice sounds rough, angry. "Not only has the CG fucked up in reporting the boat at San Diego is the same they chased off the coast of Oahu, but it is _absolutely_ impossible that this type of boat can make the journey from Hawaii to the main land. That about sum it up?"

Chin nods. "Not without refueling six to eight times." He looks at Danny, a sorrowful, apologetic look on his face. "I was wrong in thinking they'd be able to make the journey. Brah, I'm so sorry ..."

Danny, head bowed, lifts a hand to stop him. "So we're back to square fucking one; we have _no_ idea where they took Steve, where he might be. That's just great, Chin!" He knows he's being harsh, but the huge disappointment makes it impossible for him to respond in a kinder manner.

The silence in the room is deafening; then Lou scrapes his throat. "Maybe we should just keep assuming that they have taken him off the island, and start looking for other options on how they did it." He feels the others look at him, continues: "We've exhausted all other options on where he might be on the island. If he was still here, we would've heard _something_ by now, right?"

They're mulling his words over in their minds, trying to find sense in them, a glimmer of hope they can latch on to. Chin is about to say something when they hear a voice behind them.

"I'd start looking at container shipping. You know, like the _cruise ship_ option smugglers offer refugees these days." Jerry, wearing a glaring purple shirt over a pair of three-quarter khaki shorts, walks up to the PC table. "Hi guys."

Danny looks at him, his eyebrows raised. "Cruise ship option?" Jerry nods. "Yeah, that's what they call it. People pay big bucks, then get stuffed in containers and loaded on cargo ships. Mainly Asians going to Australia, New Zealand ..." He frowns. "Of course lots of them die on the way, suffocate."

"Jerry!" The chubby man looks at Kono, then at the men. "Oh hey, I'm not implying that happened to Steve! Suffocate, I mean. But if this is something they planned, well, a container is a great way to get somebody off the island unnoticed, right? Especially if you forged the shipping papers for the cargo."

"You know, I think you may actually have something there." Chin types something on the PC screen, then starts flipping through several lists. Danny is still staring at Jerry, his hand unconsciously rubbing his chin again. "Why would they want to plan something like that, why take Steve off the island in the first place? Why not ..." He can't finish the sentence, the words refusing to pass his lips.

Jerry finishes his thought for him. "Kill him? That would pretty much be an open and shut case, right? Maybe they want to distract you guys, make you look the other way. Like how Mulder faked his own suicide so he could infiltrate the Pentagon unnoticed." Danny throws him a questioning glance. "X-files, man!"

Sighing, Danny shakes his head. "All right, Mr. Stay Puft, enough with the conspiracy theories." He looks at Lou, then at Chin and Kono. "However, I also think Jerry may have a point." Jerry beams. "OK folks, let's concentrate on any cargo ship that left port the night Steve got abducted."

Kono heads into her office and gets busy on the phone while Chin continues to search through shipping lists on the computer. "Anything I can help with?" Jerry looks like a dog watching people eat cookies, hoping one gets tossed his way. "Actually, yes Jerry. See if you can help Chin on the computer; who knows, maybe more of your crazy ideas will pay off."

Lou walks up to Danny. "What do you want me to do, Danny?" Danny stares off into space for a minute, trying to process the sudden switching of gears following Chin's news and Jerry's suggestion. "I think you and me are going to pay a visit to the harbor and see if we can find anything that might support Jerry's theory." Lou nods, then follows Danny as he walks out of HQ.

* * *

There is the sensation of something wet and warm on his body, then his skin rapidly chilling as it moves on. Feeling wetness beneath him, he involuntarily shivers, sending individual shards of pain through his muscles and nerves. Hands roll him over, repeating the process on his back, his legs.

Then he is scrubbed vigorously with some raw material, leaving his skin feeling like it's on fire. He feebly tries lifting a hand, touches an arm, feels his hand being gently but firmly pushed down again.

"Almost done, hang on." The voice sounds as if coming from a far-away place.

He is rolled over again, and a wave of nausea starts from the pit of his stomach, spreads up to his head until it feels like he is falling into a bottomless chasm. When the feeling of vertigo makes him retch, the movement stops until the nausea has passed. Next, he feels the wetness beneath him disappear, replaced by soft and warm material, then he is rolled over onto his other side, more slowly this time.

Still shivering, he suddenly feels a stream of intensely cold air move over his body. His muscles cramp up from this sudden onslaught on his sensations, and he feels his teeth starting to chatter. The pain in his body is jacked up a couple of notches, and he groans.

"Jesus man, close the door! Last thing he needs now is to catch pneumonia."

The cold air disappears, and he feels his body covered by a soft, light material. Then more layers of a thicker material are added, and the shivering starts to ease off as his body warms up. Hands gently lift his head and shoulders and he feels something thick and soft propped underneath him so he no longer lies flat on his back, then the material is pulled up so he is completely covered.

"Are you still with me? Steve?" The far-away voice is coaxing him forward from the fog in his head, and he tries to follow it into consciousness. For a moment he manages to open his eyes, both of them this time, and he can barely make out a face hovering close to his own.

The effort however proves to be too much, and as he slips back into darkness again, the last thought going through his mind is _Steve? Who is Steve?_

* * *

Danny and Lou have been talking to harbor personnel, asking them if they have seen or noticed anything unusual. After several hours they come up empty-handed; nobody seems to be able to think back more than several days, let alone over a week.

"It's like those three monkeys; see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." Lou sounds disgusted. They both know that, even if something out-of-the-ordinary had been noticed, it will not be disclosed to the members of Five-0. Without hard facts, anything solid they can confront people with, they won't get any further.

Danny's phone rings, Chin's name on the display. "Danny, we may have found something." For a second a snide, caustic remark tries to pass his lips, wanting to remind Chin that he has spoken these words before. Instead, Danny manages to swallow the bitterness. "On our way, Chin."

* * *

There's a hand softly shaking his shoulder, a voice trying to break open the warm cocoon that envelops him. He resists at first, refusing to leave this safe place where he feels no pain, no cold. Trying to ignore the hand, the voice, he retreats further into the darkness, but the voice follows him.

"Come on, Steve, wake up."

He frowns at the name. Steve ... somehow it's important, but he is just too weary to further contemplate the matter. Moaning softly, he tries to bury down into the cocoon again, to keep any sensory input at bay. No luck. The hand shakes his shoulder again, more insistent this time.

"Open you eyes. I got you this far, I'm not planning on letting you slip away."

He barely manages to open his eyes further than two slits, his breath hissing at the light that assaults him. A shadow moves between him and the light, blocking out most of it. A face comes towards him, light green eyes staring intently into his own.

"There you go. Come on, fight it; wake up."

The voice is dragging him forward, pulling him from the warm nothingness inside his head. He becomes aware of a dull ache in his head, of his tongue lying thick and sore in his mouth. He tries to move it around, grimacing at the pain.

"You bit your tongue a couple of times when you were having convulsions."

Convulsions? He has a dim memory of his body spasming uncontrollably, of hands coaxing him, holding him. Focusing on the face, he grasps for other memories, but his mind comes up empty. He doesn't know who this man is, doesn't know where he is; he doesn't know why he feels so desperately exhausted, why his body is riddled with pain from top to bottom.

"Do you remember anything, Steve?"

He frowns again, then tries to speak. The sound which finally comes from his mouth is barely more than a whisper. "Ste .. Steve?" Just uttering that one word causes his throat to constrict, and he starts coughing, groaning as pain shoots trough his head.

"Easy there, buddy."

The man pulls him up slightly so it's easier to draw in air, then gently claps him on his back to loosen the phlegm lodged in his throat. He holds up a bucket, and supports him as he gags, trying to get rid of the mucus. When he calms down he lays him down against the pillows again, pulling up the blankets around his shoulders.

"Here, try have some of this. You need to start building your strength, and I don't want you to go into renal failure because lack of fluids. No more IV supplies, you gotta do it yourself now."

A sipping cup is placed against his lips, and when he sucks, a warm, salty fluid fills his mouth. It stings his wounded tongue, and he grimaces. Despite the pain, he swallows it, and he feels a warmth spreading through his body. Seconds later, his stomach starts cramping fiercely. He doubles up, groaning, and before he knows it the broth is coming back up again. He is swiftly placed over the bucket again, and he retches until his stomach is empty.

"OK, so first effort failed. Come on, let's try again."

He closes his eyes, turns away his face; the effort of emerging from the darkness, of drinking, has exhausted him. All he wants now is to retreat into his cocoon again, but the man shows no mercy.

"Not this time. Come on, you _need_ to drink this!"

An arm is placed behind his shoulders, hoisting him up. As the blankets slide down, he subconsciously registers that he is naked beneath them, and he starts shivering as his bare flesh is exposed. The sipping cup is placed against his mouth again, and this time he is prepared for the stinging sensation as the liquid fills his mouth.

"Small sips, don't drink it all at once."

As the first sip hits his stomach, the cramping starts again, but less severe. The following sips go down without a hitch, and after a few minutes the cup is empty. He is bone weary, the warmth of the broth suffusing his body.

"Well done. Now you can go back to sleep."

The arm gently releases him into the pillows again, and before the blankets are drawn up over his shoulders, he has fallen into a deep slumber.

* * *

How far gone are you when you can't even remember your own name? What have they done to him?

And who is this man who seems determined to drag Steve back from the brink of death?


	4. Coming up for air

This story has grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, demanding to be written; _now! _However, updates will have to wait a little while now, so please be patient ;-)

Steve has been pulled back from the edge of certain death.  
However, his mind still seems lost somewhere ...

* * *

4\. COMING UP FOR AIR

It's the sounds that filter through before anything else. The most dominant one is a continuous crackling, from time to time interrupted by a loud *pop*; another continuous sound is the zooming noise in the background, seeming to come from further away. And then there are voices, speaking low, hushed.

He slowly forces himself to open his eyes, peering through his eyelashes. There's a light flickering off to his left, creating dancing shadows on walls that seem to be made of timber. Two of the shadows appear to be more steady, only moving slightly.

When he tries to turn his head, the movement causes stiff muscles to scream, most noticeably in his neck, and he groans involuntarily. One of the shadows gets up, moves towards where he is lying down.

"Hey, welcome to the land of the living."

Trying to peer up to the voice, his head protests at the motion, and he closes his eyes again to fight off a wave of nausea. The next moment he feels hands moving over his body, turning him on his side.

"There's a bucket if you're gonna be sick."

For a moment he thinks he may actually need it, but he manages to swallow the bile. He feels the blankets being drawn up over his bare back and shoulders, and he is grateful for the warmth. Nonetheless, his teeth start chattering, and chills run over his body.

"Hold still, I'm going to check your temperature."

He feels something inserted into his right ear, then hears a loud *beep*. Then his head is gently moved the other way, causing him to groan again, and the action is repeated on his left ear.

"Just below 103F; still not good."

He vaguely discerns the worry in the voice, sees the figure rise and move away; within seconds he's back, then kneels down next to him.

"I'm not going to give you drugs anymore, but here's some chicken broth. If you manage to finish that I have some B and C vitamins for you."

The man kneels next to him, and as his face comes closer he notices green, somehow familiar eyes. An arm is placed underneath his shoulders, and a sipping cup held to his lips; it feels like he has experienced this before.

"Here, slow sips."

His mouth feels the sting of salt, and when he swallows his throat burns; when three-quarters of the cup has been drained, it is removed from his mouth.

"Hang on, first try swallowing these."

A bitter pill is placed in his mouth, and he grimaces. Then the cup is placed back against his lips; it takes three sips to get the pill down through a throat protesting by constricting. Another pill is placed in his mouth, and he gratefully takes the remaining four sips from the cup to get that down as well.

"Good. If you keep this up, you should start feeling better soon."

He instinctively wants to close his eyes and drift off again, retreat to a place where he can just linger, but an inner voice tells him to stay awake. The blankets are drawn up to his chin again, and he welcomes the enveloping warmth. The man remains kneeling next to him, green eyes locked on his face.

"What do you remember, Steve?"

Remember ... he searches through his mind, trying to find something, anything. He frowns, becomes agitated at encountering nothing but blanks where he knows should be memories, faces, _names._

Names ... scraping his throat carefully, he softly stutters out a question. "Who's Steve?" He stares at the man next to him, peering from between his lashes. He sees him frown.

"You don't remember?"

Instead of shaking his head, careful not to bring on another wave of nausea, he whispers "No". The green eyes stare at him from beneath eyebrows drawn down in a frown.

"Hang on."

The man gets up, walks out of sight; then he hears whispering voices. At one point it sounds like the voices are arguing, with an unfamiliar voice uttering a harsh "No!". He hears the voice of the green-eyed man talking in a soothing but hurried manner, seemingly trying to convince the other man.

The argument continues, and he gives in to the urge to slowly drift off towards that safe, warm place in his mind.

* * *

It now has been twelve days and nearly eighteen hours since Steve has gone missing. The team has sunk its teeth in the suggestions made by Jerry, and they have been combing through shipping lists, cargo manifests and departure schedules for the last two days.

Danny has finally shaved, already gently prompted on several occasions by his team members; however, it was a remark made by Jerry that had him reaching for his razor.

"Hey, Danny, are you going for the Mulder-look from _I Want To Believe_? The film was pretty bad but he had an awesome chin brush there." Jerry sounds admiring.

Rubbing his hand through what was now a fairly impressive start of a beard, Danny had glowered. "One more remark out of you and I'm coming after you with a pair of hedge clippers." Jerry had blanched, instinctively fingering his long locks. "Oh hey, no man. I gotta remain incognito, you know?"

The next day Danny makes a clean-shaven appearance. He has to admit it feels good to get a little air on his face again, feeling the cool breeze stave off the heat of the Hawaiian sun. But despite his improved appearance, his mind is still a cesspool of emotions.

He often wakes in the middle of the night, images of a dead and bloodied Steve, eyes open in horror, catapulting him from sleep. The last time it happened, his over-imaginative mind turned Steve not so much into a dead body but a corpse, a corpse with the tell-tale signs of nearly two weeks of decomposition. That time he had screamed loudly, ramming his head into his pillow to muffle the horror erupting from his mouth.

The only thing preventing him from driving his car off a cliff, or swallowing his own gun from sheer desperation, is Jerry's continuing insistence that, whoever took Steve, has no use for him dead. And if Steve isn't dead, it means he needs Five-0, needs _him_, to keep looking, to turn over every rock and stone hiding unsavory individuals, to knock on every door, to crack open every computer of people suspected to be involved.

"Whoever they are, they covered their tracks well." Chin frowns as he goes through list after list, eyes blurring with the endless figures and numbers. Kono is assisting him with the tedious reading; when she goes home at night she can still see the numbers rolling through her view. It's exhaustive work.

Lou and Danny have been concentrating on that other part of Jerry's suggestion; that the perpetrators have staged the Five-0 Commander's kidnapping to keep the team's attention diverted from something else. So far they have investigated two major events about to take place on Oahu, but no red flags have popped up regarding either of those.

Chin's earlier announcement that he might have found something again hadn't paid off either, and he had spent the rest of the day being extremely quiet, morose looking, until even Danny felt a stab of pity. "Don't beat yourself up, Chin. We have all failed to come up with something, not just you."

So on this twelfth day, they're still stuck at the point they started off. No clues, no leads; _no_ _Steve_.

* * *

There's a hand shaking him again, and this time it's easier to surface towards consciousness. He tries to swallow, his throat still raw and dry, resulting in a dry cough. As he slowly cracks open his eyes, he sees the now familiar face hovering above his own.

"I'm going to clean you again, and change your bedding."

He feels the warm covers being removed, shivers at the flow of air moving over his body. Then there's a hand efficiently moving something warm and wet over his face, the front of his body and his crotch, after which he is scrubbed dry.

"I'm going to turn you over now, do your back."

The same procedure is quickly repeated on his back. He feels the sheet underneath him being rolled up against him, then he's held with one hand as the man places a clean sheet and a pad behind him. He frowns.

"It's not like you've been able to go to the bathroom, right?" The green eyes smile down at him. "Hang on, turning you over again."

He's deftly rolled over onto his other side onto the fresh sheet and clean pad, then feels them being pulled straight. When he's placed on his back, he's already exhausted. Blankets are drawn up to his shoulders, then hands lift him up and lay him down again on a pillow.

"There, all clean. Think you can drink some broth again?"

It's easier to resist the urge to drift off, and he softly whispers: "Yes." The man stands up and returns within minutes with the sipping cup, placing it against his lips. When he's nearly done, he's given pills again. This time it's easier to swallow, although his throat still protests.

"You asked me last night who Steve is. Do you remember now?"

He's given an inquisitive look. Digging through his mind he tries to find an answer, tries to remember, but to no avail. "No." The green eyes stare down at him, then the man scrapes his throat.

"OK, look, I can't tell you everything, but I think being able to remember things is important, will help speed up your recovery. So I can tell you a few things, OK?"

He nods. Scraping his throat, the man starts feeding him bits of information.

"Your name is Steve. I don't know your last name, but I do know that you were captured, more accurately abducted, for a specific reason. After your abduction you were drugged almost continuously for seven days straight, and the cheap unauthorized veterinary cocktail they used nearly killed you."

The voice sounds almost angry, and the green eyes bore into his, trying to evaluate his reaction. He doesn't have any, as none of this sparks off a memory. It sounds like a crazy story, but it doesn't feel connected to him. The man continuous to sum up facts.

"They left you lying in your own filth, causing all kinds of nasty infections; you nearly choked to death on your own vomit when they transferred you, then you were stuck in a refrigerated meat truck for almost two full days until you were handed over to us."

The man stares at him, but he still doesn't feel any responsive emotion; there aren't any memories that come popping up. He's being told a story, a narrative of things which might as well have happened to another person. It all makes no sense to him.

"When you were transferred into my care you were basically on the verge of death. Your core temperature was ridiculously low, you had no blood pressure to speak of, and your whole system was on the brink of full shut-down. I had to force numerous bags of warmed IV-fluids into you to reverse that."

He just looks at him, frowning, trying to take in what he's being told. It still doesn't ring any bells, but at least he now knows why he feels the way he does; he's obviously been through some kind of hell.

"It took at least three days before I was sure the injuries you sustained, combined with all you'd gone through during your transportation and the withdrawal symptoms of that drug wouldn't kill you. To be honest, I'm quite impressed you're still here; I had little hope that you would actually make it."

The man now smiles at him, and he manages to whisper two words: "Thank you." The man nods curtly, then moves a hand towards his face. He feels his left cheek being gently probed, but the sensation is strange, almost as if his face is asleep.

"You also apparently fractured your cheekbone when they abducted you. There's not much I can do about that, but now the swelling has gone down a bit I think you were lucky in that regard; it doesn't look like the bone has been displaced, or depressed. It may feel numb, but chances are that will sort itself out as well."

He feels his eyelashes flutter close; trying to absorb all this information, trying to make sense out of it all has left him feeling weary. Just before he drifts off again, he softly asks one more question: "You a doctor?" He opens his eyes, barely able to stay awake to hear the answer.

"No man, I'm no doctor. I'm a Navy SARC, that's like a combat medic. I saw plenty of action in lots of countries, once even being attached to a Navy SEAL team."

These words somehow trigger something in his mind, something embedded so deeply, so inextricably a part of his whole being that it can't even be called a memory. As he closes his eyes, he sees flashes, images appear, and his eyes move rapidly behind closed eyelids; just before he drifts off, he almost inaudibly whispers "Team Six".

He doesn't hear the shocked intake of breath coming from the man kneeling next to his mattress; subconsciously shivers but no longer registers the blankets being pulled down, the man holding the blankets back taking a long look at his physique. Nor does he hear the whispered words as the blankets are drawn up over his body again.

"Of course, that explains it!"

* * *

"Hey guys, I found something." Jerry nearly runs towards the PC table, looking at the team members as he tries to catch his breath. "Woo, I think I need to do something about my condition." He looks up to find Danny's eyes boring into his, swallows, then places a laptop on the PC table. "OK, I found this on Craigslist."

A smirk appears on Lou's face while Danny rolls his eyes. "Craigslist. Really Jerry? We're dealing with the abduction of a law enforcement officer and you think your best bet is to start searching Craigslist? Don't you think this is beyond the point of, well, _normalcy_ even for you?"

A hurt look appears on the chubby face. "Hey man, I'm really trying to help here; I like Steve just as much as you guys do!" He looks at Danny, who just sighs. "OK, let's have it. What did you manage to find that you think will provide better results than all of Five-0's resources."

Jerry opens a browser, than calls up some saved Internet pages. "Well, the first interesting thing I found was on the Honolulu Craigslist. Here, take a look." Danny moves over to stare over his shoulder; Chin glances at the address on top of the page and quickly types it in the large PC, then moves the image over to one of the screens.

"Oh hey, yeah, that's handier." Jerry beams at Chin, who nods. "OK, look at that add down there, posted around Midnight the night Steve disappeared." They stare at the add he's indicating; it's posted under _services gig offered services offered travel/vacation services_. The body of the add contains just one line: _Package secured, safely on board. _ There's no contact number, no name; just an email address.

"I checked the email address and it's one of those anonymous accounts; you know, where you only have an hour or so to read any replies." Jerry looks at them. "So what do you guys think?"

Danny doesn't know what to think, but he has to agree that it's just a bit strange. "Without a real email address, it's going to be impossible to find out who posted it though, right?" Danny looks at Chin. "Depends on what service they used, brah, but I'm definitely going to look into it."

Jerry scrapes his throat. "Yeah, well, if they'd have used the TOR client then you would be left without a clue." He feels Danny staring at him again. "Anyway, that's not all I found. I checked loads of other Craigslists for similar adds, and then I found this." He shows Chin the laptop so he can copy the Internet address.

"OK, there it is. I found this on the San Diego Craigslist, posted under the same listing, six days later." _Package arrived and transferred for further shipping._ There's another email address attached to the add. "Same type of email account, the disposable kind." Jerry looks at the team members to judge their reaction.

Lou stares at the two adds next to each other. "Six days, that's about the time it takes a cargo ship to travel between Oahu and the main land, right?" Chin nods, almost exited. "Judging from all the shipping manifests I've gone through that would be exactly right."

Something is stirring within Danny, something he thought had been dead and buried along with any realistic chance of ever seeing Steve again. Hope_._

"If this is the real deal, if these adds are actually tied to Steve's abduction, then we now know that he was taken off the island and transferred by boat to San Diego." Danny looks at his colleagues, sees the earlier beaten down look has left their faces, now replaced with sheer determination.

"So we have to focus on San Diego, get in touch with law enforcement there to find out where they took him." Lou looks at Danny, but before he can answer, Jerry speaks up. "Ehm, actually, I don't think he's there anymore." He shows Chin a third web page address.

"I found this add on the Olympic Peninsula Craigslist of Washington state; again, same listing, same type of add, same type of disposable email address." He swallows. "I have to warn you guys though; you may not like what it says."

Holding their breath, they wait for the add to appear on one of the screens. As soon as it does, they know Jerry is right; they don't like what they read. They don't like it one bit.

_Package transferred for final destination; contents severely damaged. Outcome unclear._

* * *

It looks like our Five-0 Commander is slowly finding his way back; but to what?

And what are the motives of this SARC or _Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman_ to help in his abduction? And now that he seems to have found out Steve is a SEAL, what will he do?


	5. Damaged goods

Sometimes damaged goods can be repaired, and sometimes they are a total loss.  
And Steve has been pretty badly damaged ...

* * *

5\. DAMAGED GOODS

Danny can't get the last ad Jerry found out of his mind. _Contents severely damaged. Outcome unclear._ It can only mean Steve is in trouble, serious trouble, and his sleep is now haunted by nightmares of a badly injured Steve; a beaten, broken Steve; a possibly dying Steve ...

Not knowing where he is, not being able to rush to his assistance, not even having the option of forfeiting his own life to save that of Steve is ripping him apart. And he knows the rest of the team feels the same. A member of their _ohana_, their family might be in grave danger, and there's nothing they can do to help him.

The ad has been posted five days ago; since then, no more traces have been found. He has ordered Jerry to scour Craigslist every day, all day, desperate to find more information; but nothing. The _No news is good news _saying really doesn't apply in this case.

The now near-certainty that these adds concern Steve's abduction has prompted the team to contact both California and Washington State Police, trying to get as many eyes on the look-out for their boss. They have forwarded everything and anything they think may help in solving the case, but there have been no further developments.

They have absolutely no idea where to look. Steve remains missing.

* * *

The voice is filtering through his subconsciousness, reaching down into that warm place he still prefers to retreat to. It's a familiar voice, but he doesn't feel like responding. He wants to stay wrapped in this safe cocoon where there's no pain, no worries, no questions. The voice is very insistent though.

"Come on, Steve. Wake up."

He frowns, then slowly opens his eyes. The green eyes staring down at him look serious. Next, he feels hands hoisting him further up against his pillow until he's half-seated. The sudden change in position brings on an unexpected wave of nausea.

"Think you're going to be sick?"

Swallowing, he forces down the rush of bile, manages to whisper a soft "no". Next, he feels the blankets being drawn up over his shoulders, shielding him from any cold drafts. He peers through his lashes at the man sitting next to him on the mattress.

"We need to start getting some real nourishment into you. You're not out of the woods yet."

The man gets up, walks towards the opposite side of the room. He uses the opportunity to look at his surroundings. Slowly turning his head to the right, cringing at the painful stabs in his neck, he sees the mattress he's lying on is in a corner, wedged against walls made of timber. A cabin?

When he turns his head the other way, he sees a large black wood stove, flames flickering behind the soot covered glass. A stack of chopped firewood lies next to it, and there are two doors on either side in the wall behind. In front of the stove is a large, worn-out green couch.

The man is standing next to the stove, stirring something in a pot, then ladling some of its contents into a bowl. After he adds some water from a pitcher, he comes back to the mattress and sits down again, smiling at him.

"I made a very simple stew of potatoes, carrots and some apple. Nothing fancy, and thin enough for you to swallow without too many problems."

A spoon is held up to his lips, and as he opens up, the contents are carefully placed in his mouth. It's almost liquid, tastes sweet and warm. As he swallows, he feels the food going down and warming his stomach. "Good" he whispers. It takes him about ten minutes to finish the contents of the bowl.

"Glad to see you have an appetite. Another mechanism kicking in, means your body is restarting."

The food sits comfortably in his stomach, and he doesn't have to urge to bring it back up. Eating has worn him out again though, and he feels his eyes flutter close.

"No, stay with me a little longer. Don't go to sleep yet."

He fights to keep his eyes open, looks at the man staring down at him. There seems to be a question in his eyes, and his brow is furrowed as he frowns.

"Last night, when I told you I'm a combat medic ... do you remember what you said?"

He tries to think back, finding it very hard to grab onto something; anything beyond the past few days is still a complete blank. What he said? He doesn't know. The man sees his obvious confusion.

"When I said I had been attached to a SEAL team, you whispered something just before you fell asleep."

SEAL. Now there's a word that does mean something to him, but he's not sure what exactly. He frowns, feels something stirring in his mind. Something ... _familiar_.

"You mentioned SEAL Team Six. Remember?"

Team Six! Suddenly, a barrage of images, sounds and impressions comes flooding through his head. They engulf him like a tsunami, and he cringes at the onslaught. The sensory overload causes his heart to speed up, and his breathing becomes erratic.

"Calm down, Steve; don't lose it."

He feels hands gently grabbing his shoulders, as if to anchor him. He is trembling from the impact of it all, but the flood of images recedes just as sudden as it appeared.

"That means something to you, doesn't it? Are you a SEAL, Steve?"

He looks up wearily, still shaken from his reaction. "Don't know." Frowning, he tries to pick through the remnants of those images, tries to grasp something that will explain this. He finds one thing. "What's ... buds? " He can barely keep his eyes open but fights to stay awake, knows this is important.

"BUDS is the SEAL training course. And the fact that you know the term now makes me convinced that you really are a SEAL. _Damn!_"

He watches as an angry look passes over the man's face, and somehow feels bad about upsetting him. "Sorry" he whispers. The man looks back down at him, first surprised, then with a slight smile playing over his lips.

"Sorry? Hell no man, you have nothing to be sorry about. You just concentrate on gaining your strength back. Like I said, you're not there yet, not by a long shot."

The man gets up, walks towards the stove again, then comes back with a sipping cup. Placing an arm underneath his shoulders, he lifts him half out of the pillow as he puts the cup to his lips.

"Here. This is broth again, so you get sufficient liquids and some extra nourishment."

He gratefully sips from the cup, welcoming the warm salty flavor. When he's finished, he's no longer able to fight off sleep. As he slips down into a slumber, he dimly feels himself being repositioned so he's lying on his back again, then the blankets pulled up to his chin.

The man is looking down at his patient, now deeply asleep. He's felt uncomfortable about the whole affair since the moment he became involved, but as more details about Steve become clear, he realizes he no longer wants to be any part of it.

However, Steve is still extremely weak, and he just knows he won't get the care he needs; knows there's still a major chance he will lose his fight for survival if not looked after properly. So there's no other alternative but to bear with it just a little longer.

* * *

Everything has gone according to plan.

After the Five-0 team stopped tearing the island apart, looking for their Commander, things have become very quiet. As expected. It has given him the opportunity to start preparing, and John Yun has been meticulous in doing so, making certain nothing draws the attention of any of the local authorities.

The abduction of the former SEAL basically went without a hitch, apart from the head injury. The cheap veterinary sedative he had shipped over from China, covered by forged papers stating that the shipment contained vials of perfume, kept him knocked out completely.

Later that night, they transferred him from the car to a small truck near the Koko Head Shooting complex, completely abandoned at that hour. Then the truck was driven back to Honolulu Harbor and loaded onto a Chinese cargo ship bound for San Diego.

Once under way, two accomplices transferred the unconscious man to the back of a large container filled with household items. The captain was given sufficient funds to look the other way, and instructed his crew to do the same. John Yun's name, well-known within Chinese circles as belonging to the Hong Kong Triad, was mentioned as additional security.

Each day they postponed sedation long enough for him to be semi-conscious, feeding him electrolytes and soup. However, the side effects of the drug became increasingly severe, and the last two days he was unable to keep anything down.

Just before they arrived at San Diego, they bound him tightly, gave him extra sedation and taped his mouth shut, then packed him in a small crate bound for a Chinese gift shop. At the gift shop, he was transferred to a small meat truck in a back alley and driven to a slaughter house.

All these things were organized by Yun, who has the power to move the Chinese community in any direction he sees fit.

However, the last leg of transportation and final destination of the Five-0 Commander was arranged by affiliates to a local California motorcycle gang. Yun did not want any trace leading back to him, or to Oahu. His only stringent stipulation was that the abducted man wouldn't die.

He was therefor none too pleased when he read the last message, and now he has no idea whether the Five-0 Commander is still alive. This not only is a serious interference with his plans, but an absolute flagrant disregard of his orders; however, he does not have the time to fix this problem now.

He will though; find those responsible, and fix it. And heads will roll.

* * *

There are images running through his mind; images of swimming, diving under water. Then other images of men behind and beside him, of them silently rushing forward; then gunfire erupting. The sounds are deafening, and he sees men falling, hears screaming. He moans, overwhelmed, unable to make sense of it all, not understanding how this all feels strangely familiar.

Hands grab him, and still caught in the film playing through his head, he instinctively fights them, tries to break free; but he isn't strong enough. Giving his last effort, he fights harder; sweat is pouring down his face and body, and his heart pounds like a run-away horse. He starts gasping for air, unable to draw in oxygen through a tightly constricted throat.

And as he's drawn down into darkness, his heart starts faltering.

* * *

"There's some interesting whispers circulating in Honolulu's Chinese community." Kono walks into HQ and joins the men sitting at the conference table, having lunch. "Whispers? Or rumors?" Danny looks at her as she grabs an apple and sinks her teeth into it. Holding up a hand, she empties her mouth before replying. "Whispers. And nobody willing, or brave enough, to confirm them."

She is about to take a second bite from the apple when Chin places a hand on her arm. "Cuz, speak now, eat later." She sighs, looks at the apple, then explains. "The whispers are that there's a high placed individual of the Hong Kong Triad on the island. Been here for the last two months or so." They stare at her, and she uses the moment of silence to continue eating her apple.

Chin frowns. "Triad ... if they come down here personally, then something big is either about to go down, or has gone down already." Danny looks at him, but it's Lou who speaks next. "So it looks like Jerry has been right about that as well. The Triad certainly wouldn't like Five-0 breathing down their neck if they're planning on something."

Chin nods. "Do you have a name, Kono?" His cousin continues to chew on her apple, shaking her head. "Well, if it's the Chinese Triad that's behind Steve's abduction, I'd say now is a good time to start focusing on any Chinese cargo ship that left the harbor that night." Danny gets up.

"And I mean _right_ now!" The team springs into action.

* * *

He was trying to wake Steve from what clearly was a nightmare and barely had the time to think that this was a positive thing, because it meant he was remembering things, when Steve suddenly started gasping for air, choking. Seconds later, and he knew Steve was going into cardiac arrest.

Swearing, he rolled him off the mattress onto his stomach on the wooden floor and started CPR to keep his heart going, to keep circulation going. The choice to put him on his stomach had been instinctive, a battlefield experience to prevent additional complications by fracturing a rib, to simultaneously secure an airway and prevent Steve from choking on his own vomit while he worked on him.

"Don't you dare, motherfucker; don't you _dare_ die on me now!"

* * *

He's at the bottom of a deep chasm, stuck in a place which is cold, quiet ... peaceful.

Curling in on himself, he senses how easy it will be to just give up, to stop fighting, to simply stop being. It has all been too hard, there's been too much pain; this cold, lonely sanctuary is his safe haven. He starts to let go, curling inwards even further, cutting loose the last tentative link to life, growing colder ...

* * *

He's been working on him for nearly thirty minutes, and the thought Steve may have actually lost his fight for survival is starting to cross his mind. Even his SEAL training, his physique, his mental stamina may not have been enough to overcome the continuous assault his body's had to endure.

"Come on, Steve! There must be _something_ for you to keep living for; what are you, a _tadpole_?!"

* * *

The walls around him start trembling, and the bottom of the chasm is suddenly erupting beneath him, forcing him back upwards. Pieces of rock start falling on him, hurting him. A distant voice is reaching down from above, taunting him, telling him that he can't give up, can't let go.

The chasm's walls continue to shake, the bottom pushing him further upwards, and suddenly he starts reaching out, clawing at the walls, fighting his way up. It isn't time yet.

* * *

Sweating, swearing, he continues the rapid compressions, until suddenly he hears a soft moan. He stops, quickly bends down and listens. Incredible but true, Steve is breathing again, has somehow miraculously found the strength to restart his heart.

"Oh man, you really are a tenacious son-of-a-bitch! Holy crap, you scared the shit out of me ..."

He talks to himself out of sheer relief, knows he has just witnessed something which in theory is possible, but rarely happens in reality. He quickly checks Steve's pulse, finds it weak but steady. He grabs a blanket from the bed and throws it over him, trying to keep him warm.

The following fifteen minutes, he keeps checking his pulse, making sure the heart rhythm continuous its steady, regular pace. Then he removes the blanket, grabs him underneath his chest and, as he takes a few steps back, lifts him off the floor. Steve moans, protesting against what is evidently painful.

"Yeah, sorry man, I know it hurts; gotta get you back in bed though, or hypothermia will get you."

When he has pulled Steve to his knees, he quickly steps to his side, leaning his body against his legs; then he uses his right hand to grab him underneath his right armpit, does the same on the left side and, as he rotates him, gently lets him fall back onto the mattress. When his upper body is back on the bed, he quickly grabs a pillow, places his legs on them and covers him with blankets.

Steve is deadly pale, and his breath is coming in short, superficial gasps. He quickly checks him over and comes to the conclusion that, besides added sore muscles, the CPR hasn't done any damage. It's obvious though that he needs to jack up his blood pressure, or Steve may go into cardiac arrest again. And he doesn't think he will be able to survive a second event.

With all the IV supplies gone, he ransacks his mind, trying to come up with a solution. When he finds it, he looks down at the unconscious man on the mattress.

"Oh buddy, are you lucky you're not conscious; you wouldn't like what I'm about to do to you."

With that, he starts preparations by boiling water on the stove.

* * *

Danny stares at the print-out of the shipping list of the _Yasmin Flower_, one of two Chinese cargo ships leaving Honolulu Harbor on the night of Steve's abduction. Then he compares it to the list they have just received from San Diego port authorities.

"There, right at the bottom." Chin points to the area he has highlighted. Danny reads it, frowns. _Crate, size: small - Contents: miscellaneous - Addressee: Wong Gift Shop, San Diego_. "The Wong Gift Shop; obviously not a place to go looking for a gift." The mumbled remark causes a small smile to appear on Chin's face. "Well brah, who knows; in our case this may turn out to be the best gift shop ever."

Danny looks up, then down at the two lists again, and suddenly he sees it. He quickly checks both lists again, then stares up at Chin. "The crate's not on the Honolulu list!" Chin nods. "Exactly. It seems to have magically appeared somewhere between Honolulu and San Diego. A sloppy mistake." Danny looks at him. "Or maybe they bet on us never reaching this point, so we would never find out."

Smiling grimly at Chin, he reaches for the phone and starts making phone calls.

* * *

He is vaguely aware of hands on his body, of a strange sensation in his bowels. There is wetness beneath him, making him shiver, sending flashes of pain through his muscles. He is exhausted from climbing back out of the dark chasm, bone weary from the sheer effort of it all. There are more things done to him, things he feels he would protest against if he had the energy.

Then he feels the familiar process of being washed, being cleaned, and soon the wetness beneath him is gone and he is enveloped by clean, warm bedding. He utters a soft sigh, ready to withdraw in his warm cocoon again; but he is stopped from doing so by the voice, the same one that coaxed him out of the chasm.

"Steve! Come on buddy, gimme a sign that you're with me again."

It takes a lot of effort to surface, more effort than he's willing or even able to give now, but the voice still won't let up. He groans as a hand gently taps his right cheek.

"That's right, get mad at me, as long as you open your eyes. Wake up."

Slowly his eyelids flutter open, and after several trials he manages to keep them open. The face above him is one he knows by now; the green eyes looking down at him have a concerned look in them.

"There you are. How do you feel?"

He frowns, finding it hard to string coherent thoughts together. There's pain everywhere, his back feels like he's been run over by a herd of elephants, his chest hurts; he manages to utter "crap" in a barely audible whisper.

"I bet. Haven't met too many people stating they felt fine after going into cardiac arrest."

He stares at him through his eyelashes. Cardiac arrest? He died then, or at least almost did. It explains why he was down at the bottom of the chasm. He frowns, realizes that the man must've pulled him back from the brink of death again. Barely managing to form the word, he utters a soft "thanks".

"Look, I like to take all the credit for it, but you lying there breathing isn't just because of me. You fought hard, man! You're really one of the most stubborn-headed individuals I've ever met."

The green eyes smile at him, and suddenly there's an image of a different face, this time with baby-blue eyes, accusing him of the very same thing, of being stubborn-headed. He can't put a name to the face but knows this individual is important to him, _very_ important. "Name" he whispers.

"My name? No, that's not what you meant, huh. You're starting to remember stuff, although I sincerely hope that won't bring on the same reaction as it did the last time."

The green eyes keep looking at him, trying to discern whether he will become upset. But the image of the man with the baby-blue eyes does not upset him; instead, it gives him a warm feeling inside.

"Anyway, since we've come this far, and as I do know your name, I guess it's only fair that you know mine. It's Rhys. My family originally came from Wales."

Steve nods, feeling sleep tug at his eyelids. He fights it, trying to stay awake, thinking that this is what Rhys expects of him.

"Go to sleep now, Steve, it's OK. I think we got you through the worst of it again."

He let's go then, let's himself be dragged down. This time it's not an abyss, or a chasm where he ends up. This time it's in the welcoming arms of Morpheus where he rests, secure in his knowledge that Rhys watches over him. And as he sleeps, he continues to see the face of the man with the baby-blue eyes.

* * *

Steve sure has it rough, and some things are too rough even for SEALs. Hope it will be calmer seas for him from here on out.  
Although with the Triad involved ...

Some of the motives are becoming clear, and Five-0 seems to have picked up on a solid lead.  
But where will it lead them?


	6. Out of the Abyss

Danny is going through the mental equivalence of the physical hell Steve is going through.  
And it gets worse ...

* * *

6\. OUT OF THE ABYSS

Fifteen days. It has been fifteen days, and Danny has been going crazy for at least fourteen of them. He _looks_ like the man in charge, _acts_ like the man in charge; but he feels hopelessly inadequate compared to the _real_ man in charge, the man they're still looking for.

The man that woke him from his sleep last night.

There had been a softly whispered _Danno _in his ear. When he rolled over, half awake, he'd seen him, or at least the shadow of him, reaching out a hand. The eyes staring at him from a bloodied, broken and hollow face had been filled with immense pain, with unbearable grief.

He had stopped breathing, shocked to the core, not knowing whether he was looking at a dream, a projected apparition, or a ghost. When the shadow spoke his name again, the voice carrying a tender but gut-wrenching sorrowful quality, he had reached out his hand, touched the outstretched fingers.

They were ice cold.

That's when the tears had come, his own grief come pouring out. As his heart streamed down his face, he saw the eyes of the figure fill up as well, saw the tears sparkle in the moon light peering through the blinds as they coursed down the gaunt, emaciated face.

"Steve ..."

His desperate whisper was a plea, begging for the figure to tell him, _show_ him where to find him. He held out his hand again, reaching to touch him, but this time the shadow had given him a sad little smile, a slight lifting of the lips which cut straight through his heart.

_Bye Danno._

"NO!" He had howled, watching the figure fade away, sensing the moment it was completely gone. Collapsing on the bed, he had sobbed until there were no more tears, until he felt completely hollow inside. He had remained in bed until dawn filtered through the blinds, his sheets drenched beneath him, staring at the spot where Steve had stood.

And he wondered if that had been the last time he would ever see him.

* * *

"So tell me, Wong Lee: were my orders not specific enough?" Yun listens to the response, hears the man at the other end stutter in his haste to supply the correct answer. "Very specific, Master Yun; your intentions were as clear as a cloudless day." Yun nods. "Then please explain to me why the package was damaged. Was this not your responsibility, to ensure safe transfer?"

He hears the man's breathing increase, knows that his mind is swiftly trying to supply an answer that will both please him and simultaneously avert certain death. "Ah, but the package was not damaged on transfer, Master Yun. This must have happened _after_ it was delivered for the next part of transportation."

Yun waits with his response. He has already determined the outcome of the conversation, but hearing the man at the other end plead for his life gives him a small added sense of satisfaction. The breathing sounds are becoming even more rapid, then stop when Yun finally speaks in a low voice. "However, Wong Lee, choosing the transportation company was _your_ responsibility, was it not?" The silence on the other side continues. "Was it not, Wong Lee?"

When the voice comes back, it has a resigned quality to it, like the voice of a man who knows he can no longer outrun fate. "Yes Master Yun, that was my responsibility." He hastily adds: "Mine alone." Yun nods again. "I understand. As a favor for your honesty about your failure, I will grant you the lives of your wife and children." A soft "Thank you, Master Yun" comes back to him.

"I would, however, very much like to have the name of the transportation company you so misguidedly decided on hiring for the job." He listens to the two names being rattled off, writes them down on a scrap of paper. "Thank you, Wong Lee. Goodbye."

He ends the call, then nods to the slim Asian man standing near his desk. As he comes closer, he hands him the cell phone he has just used. "Get rid of this. And make sure San Diego is taken care of." The slim man bows, then leaves the room.

Looking down at the piece of paper, Yun frowns. He will have to enlist outside help in solving this matter, and he is not keen on throwing up more dust than absolutely necessary. However, mistakes are unforgivable; they must be corrected.

And those responsible must be punished.

* * *

"Wake up, Steve."

It barely filters through, and it's easy to ignore the voice. He burrows down further into the peaceful sleep fog enveloping his mind, wanting to stay there. A hand shaking his shoulder signals that his intention is not met with approval.

"Don't go back to sleep; you need to wake up."

Barely conscious, he reaches up an arm to remove the hand from his shoulder. Doing so causes the blankets to slide down, and the crisp air causes goose bumps to break out over his body. He shivers. The hand has no trouble in forcing down his arm again, then he feels the blankets being drawn back up.

"Hey, being stubborn is cool and all when fighting the Grim Reaper, but please don't become a pain in the ass. Now wake _up_!"

He slowly opens up his eyes, makes out a figure kneeling next to him, then groans at the bright morning light filtering through the window near the foot of the mattress. Lifting a hand from beneath the blankets, he tries to shield his eyes; he doesn't have the strength to do so. The hand is tucked back again.

"Come on, stay underneath the blankets. It's pretty damn cold today."

Slowly turning his head to the left, still hindered by cramped, sore muscles in his neck, he focuses on the man kneeling down next to the mattress. "Rhys" he whispers. The green eyes suddenly light up with a smile.

"You remembered! Good for you; that's definitely progress. Anyway, I thought we'd try and get you dressed; temperatures are dropping fast and I don't want you to catch some lung-hacking disease while you're still so weak. Or, God forbid, a repeat performance of yesterday."

He frowns, looks at Rhys; then a memory comes back, of being lost somehow, and of a man with not green but blue eyes. Somebody who feels close to him. Closing his eyes, he sees the face appear in front of him, actually hears the voice, a voice intimately familiar, a voice he has heard many times over many years.

But there's no name. Somehow, this makes him desperately sad.

"Steve? You OK?"

Opening his eyes again, he looks at Rhys and feels there are tears in his eyes. "No." The green eyes stare at him, trying to evaluate what's going on. He scrapes his throat. "Memories ... no names." Rhys slowly nods his understanding.

"That must be horrible for you, man. You still really have no idea who you are yourself either, huh?"

"No." And he doesn't. He knows his name is Steve because Rhys told him, but it's just a tag. There is no sense of identity belonging to the name, nothing that makes him feel "Yes, this is me". The only real memories he has are of pain, of being sick, of being cared for like a baby. But those don't define him.

"OK, well, listen. I can't get into too many details, and they don't matter now anyway. But I'm gonna help you. OK? I promise that I will do my damnedest to help you get those memories back and get you out of here, back to where you belong."

He stares at Rhys, tries to wrap his mind around things. Whispering, he says: "You helped ... abduct me." A frown appears on Rhys' face, and he looks down for a second. When he looks back up, his green eyes bore into his own.

"You're partly right. No, I didn't help abduct you. I'm here because ... somebody close to me _was_ involved. At least in transporting you and keeping you hidden here. And apparently, you dying was not part of the original plan, the original _order_. So, I jumped in to help because otherwise things would've turned really ugly, really fast."

It still doesn't make sense, but he feels Rhys is telling the truth. "OK." The conversation has worn him out again, and all he wants is to go to sleep. Processing facts is something which devours his energy, something he doesn't have in abundance.

Rhys seems to come to the same conclusion, because he pulls up the blankets further to completely cover him, then gently pats him on his shoulder.

"Look, you get a few more hours of sleep. It will hopefully be a bit warmer by then, so we can get you dressed. And I'll still need to wash you before that."

His nod is barely discernible as he drifts off.

* * *

Jerry doesn't look happy when he walks into HQ that morning. Danny groans as he sees him walking in, not sure if he'll be able to cope with any of his film or series references. The frightening experience of the previous night has left him feeling drained.

"What's up, Jer?" Chin smiles at him, then frowns as he sees the look on Jerry's face. "Something bad happen, brah? You look pretty downcast." Jerry keeps looking down, and Lou walks up and claps a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Mulder Fan, whatever it is, out with it."

Jerry looks at them, then peers from underneath his bushy eyebrows at Danny. And Danny suddenly knows that he has news of Steve, and that the news is _bad_! He gets up, walks towards the others, his legs trembling with a fear that turns his insides into ice water.

"Jerry, whatever you found, if it's about Steve we need to know. OK? We need to know _right now_!" He stares at Jerry, sees him swallow, then nod. He leans over to Chin, shows him a piece of paper, then whispers. Chin frowns at him. "The Deep Web? That hasn't even been indexed."

Danny steps up to him, nervously running a hand through his hair. "OK, you know what? _Fuck_ the conspiracies, the onion browsers and all that other crap!" His team mates throw him shocked looks, but he doesn't register them, continues in a pained, strangled voice. "I don't care if you found this on the Deep Web, the Red Web, or the Purple Peanut-butter Web ... just show us what you fucking found!"

His anxiety has now risen to an almost intolerable level, and he knows that if something doesn't happen soon, he will start screaming. And he doesn't know if, once started, he will be able to stop, will be able to keep in all the horror and fear and guilt of these past two weeks.

Chin quickly turns around, glances at the piece of paper Jerry has given him and types in the address. He frowns, stares down at something on a little screen, then blanches. "_What_ Chin!" When Chin turns towards Danny, his eyes have a strange look in them.

"It's a video, addressed to us." Danny just looks at him. "What do you mean, to us, cuz?" Kono steps up to the table, looks down, then steps back again, a shocked look on her face, her hand going to her mouth. "Addressed to Five-0, Danny. And it's on an obscure website, listed under Death Videos."

Danny feels his legs turn to rubber, the ice cold sensation suffusing him. A soft moan escapes his mouth, and he grabs onto the PC table to prevent himself from sinking to the floor in a pitiful, guilt-ridden heap. "You OK, Danny?" Lou comes to stand next to him, and Danny just stares at him.

"Do we really want to see this?" Chin's voice is strained, and he looks at his team mates. Swallowing, Danny nods. "Yes, we do. We need to know, even if ..." He leaves the words unspoken. Chin curtly nods, then transfers the small image to one of the screens.

* * *

_The video has been recorded at night. At first it's impossible to make out any details, then the camera zooms in on the back of a truck, one of its doors open. It's not clear where the truck is situated; nothing of its immediate surroundings are shown._

_A rough voice starts talking. "So here it is, Hawaii coppers. We've got your fucking squad leader, or head honcho." The camera is moved closer to the truck, showing its interior; there are rows and rows of animal carcasses hanging from large meat hooks._

_The camera shudders as the man holding it climbs into the back of the truck. Danny feels an ice cold hand gripping his heart, expecting any moment to see Steve's dead, broken body hanging from one of those hooks. He hangs on to the edge of the table as if his life depends on it._

_Instead of a body on a hook, the camera zooms in on boxes stacked along the back. A hand is visible, pulling on the boxes, and a whole stack just rolls back, exposing an opening. It's dark in there, but as the camera moves forward, the beam of a flashlight suddenly appears. It shines down and the camera zooms in on what appears to be a stack of blankets, stuffed into a cramped opening._

_"Oh Jesus Christ!" Danny feels his stomach lurch as the camera further zooms in and focuses on a still figure lying underneath the blankets. The exposed left side of the face is badly bruised and swollen beyond recognition, but instinctively he knows it's Steve. The hand appears again and pulls back the top blanket. "It's Steve. Look at the tattoos." Lou's voice is barely above a whisper._

_The Five-0 Commander is lying on his right side, hands cuffed, a short length of chain securing the cuffs to a ring welded onto a metal plate on the side of the truck. He doesn't move. "I can't see breath clouds ..." Kono sounds almost hysterical. "I can see the breath of that asshole but I don't see any coming from Steve!" Chin wraps an arm around her, pulling her into his body._

_"So the deal is: you can have him back, but you'll have to come get him yourself. And to make it more interesting, we won't tell you where he is." A low chuckle can be heard. "Kinda like looking for Easter eggs, you know? No clues, no hints. Let's see how good you guys are!"_

_The camera remains focused on the still body of their friend lying there, unmoving, deadly quiet._

_Danny feels a despair so huge, so totally encompassing that it threatens to swallow him whole. He lets out a soft, keening sound, his eyes never leaving the screen. He feels a large hand on his shoulder, knows it's Lou. Just as Lou is about to speak, the voice in the video starts talking again._

_"Oh, and to give you a little incentive, here's proof that he's not dead. Not yet, anyways. We kinda lied about that when we submitted the video." The camera now moves, shakes, then zooms in again on Steve, closer this time. And as they watch in horror, a foot appears at the bottom of the image and viciously kicks Steve in the lower back._

_It's difficult to make out, to hear, and the movement is ever so slight, but they can see a shudder pass through Steve's body as he softly utters a moan. Then the man holding the camera starts laughing like a demented hyena. "Happy hunting, boys and girls. And remember, once an egg shell is cracked, is goes bad really fast!"_

_Then the image goes black._

* * *

The team keeps staring at the screen, not daring to look at each other. Then, finally, Jerry softly says: "At least he wasn't dead." Danny hangs his head, trying to swallow the mountain which has formed in his throat. "No, but judging by his condition, he may very well be by now."

He chokes up as the images from the night before flash before his eyes again, and at that moment he is completely convinced that their effort to find and save their boss has been ridiculously inadequate, that they have fallen laughably short of any real results.

Steve needed their help, and they have failed him.

* * *

Rhys gently shakes the man tucked beneath a mountain of woolen blankets. He had added two more when he found Steve's skin felt chilled to the touch, and had stuffed a blanket along the wall on the outer side of the mattress to keep out drafts. He didn't want him to catch a cold now, or go through what happened the day before again. The temperature inside the cabin is barely sixty degrees Fahrenheit.

"Hey, come on man. You need to eat, get washed and then dressed."

A soft moan sounds in protest as he continues to shake the shoulder. He smiles, because it sounds completely different from the pitiful weak sounds he has been uttering so far. This is clearly annoyance, and annoyance is a good sign.

"Hey, open those peepers, Steve. You can sleep later again if you want."

Finally one eye pops open, then the other. Steve is peering at him through his eyelashes, a small frown on his forehead, his eyes dark from sleep. Rhys grins.

"Don't be mad at me; I let you sleep an additional three hours. But you really need to eat again, and then get into some clothes."

He stares at the grinning face hovering over him, then sighs. To be honest, he does feel something like hunger in his stomach. A different sensation than the usual nausea he experiences. "OK." He wants to help Rhys, tries to move higher up on the pillow, but his body is protesting fiercely. His back and chest hurt, every muscle in them screaming. He can't prevent a short groan escaping his lips.

"That's OK, don't move. It's not like you're ready to run any big marathons."

With deft moves Rhys hoists him higher on the pillows, then quickly covers him with the blankets again. He picks up a bowl from the floor, then scoops up some of its contents with a spoon.

"Same stuff you had before; potato, carrot and apple. You kept it down well, so it's agreeing with you, and it's pretty nourishing."

He opens his mouth as the spoon moves towards his lips, and seconds later he swallows; Rhys is right, it does taste good, and his stomach doesn't cramp up. Within minutes he has finished the contents of the bowl. "More?" he asks softly.

"No, no large meals for you for a while. It's better to eat several small ones throughout the day, that way you don't overload your system. Remember, it has been shut down for nearly two weeks."

He nods his understanding, enjoying the warmth the stew is sending through his body. When Rhys pulls back the blankets and gives him a quick wash, he turns his head towards the wall. He knows he is too weak to do it himself, but it still feels awkward.

"Don't be embarrassed, Steve. I've seen the numerous scars on your body and know you must have spent time in hospital. Just think of me as your friendly neighborhood male nurse or orderly." He says it in a quiet, relaxed voice, intent on making Steve feel less insecure.

Changing the bedding is over and done within minutes, then the blankets are drawn back over his shoulders. He looks as Rhys walks towards the stove, watches him pick a stack of clothes off the couch near the wood stove and then come back.

"OK, let's get this on you as quick as possible while it's still warm. It's old fashioned US military underwear, but it's made from a blend of cotton and wool, and that's the best you can wear right now."

He carefully lifts him up by the shoulders, then expertly inserts first both arms, then guides the shirt over his head and down his front and back. The heat from the stove is still present, and the warmth feels great. Next, Rhys turns back the covers, quickly puts two thick woolen socks on his feet, then sticks them into the legs of a pair of thick long-johns.

"I'm going to turn you on your side again, hang on."

He feels himself being turned over onto his right side, facing the wall. The long-johns are pulled up over his shirt, then he's turned over to his other side to repeat the procedure. Last but not least, Rhys produces a black woolen hat. He shakes "no" but is ignored, the hat firmly placed on his head. The blankets are pulled over him again, and within minutes he feels warmer than he can remember.

"I'm pretty sure I'll need to remove a couple of blankets soon, but let's get you warm and toasty first."

The extra layer between his body and the sheets, even though they're made of flannel, feels wonderful, and he's relieved he no longer is buck naked. Then he frowns as he feels pressure in his bladder. _Great!_

"What's wrong? Pain? Discomfort?" Rhys looks at him, a little worried frown appearing on his face.

He softly says "No ... need to use the head".

"Bet it's number one, right? Number two won't happen for a while yet, I can tell you that much."

He nods, again embarrassed at having to discuss these things, of needing somebody else to help him with that. He watches Rhys get up, disappear behind one of the doors in the wall, then come back with a plastic urinal. He frowns at it.

"Look, we can do either of two things; I can let you piss your pants, get your bed wet, then strip you down, wash and change everything; or I can help you piss in a bottle until you're able to do it yourself, give you a quick wipe down so your pants stay clean, and have it done in however long it takes you to fill the bottle."

He looks at Rhys, sees he's annoyed. The realization hits him that Rhys has probably seen every inch of his body this past week, has most likely cleaned up all kinds of mess he produced, and he just now has basically insulted him.

Drawing in breath, he softly says: "OK, pecker checker." An incredulous look appears on Rhys' face at the Navy insult thrown into his face; then he throws back his head and laughs out loud. He feels a small laugh bubble up in his own throat, and it feels good.

Mere minutes later, his bladder is empty and Rhys has wiped him down and is taking away the bottle. He feels himself slipping away again, his eyelids heavy, his body warm and his stomach reasonably full. He utters a soft, content sigh and falls asleep.

* * *

Steve really does seem to have taken a turn for the better. And has found a friend.  
John Yun seems to be tying up loose ends. Let's hope Five-0 can still find a few strands.

.


	7. Labyrinth of lies

**NOTE:** Like I said on my profile page, I was unable to update due to a little nasty virus that had me in its clutches. And you wouldn't have liked what I would've written. Case of 'brain fry'. So sorry for the wait, and I hope this is up to par.

-  
They're tying up loose ends again. Or are things simply unraveling?

* * *

7\. LABYRINTH OF LIES

"What is the status report on our operation?" John Yun doesn't look up at the man standing at his desk. He expects nothing but positive feedback, and he's not disappointed. "All is going as planned, Master Yun." He nods, tapping his finger tips on the gleaming mahogany. "No unwelcome noses sniffing around, I assume." "None, Master Yun." Satisfied, he dismisses the man with a curt wave of a hand.

Smiling, he swivels his chair so he can look outside. The rain shower has passed, a short and temporary interlude of what otherwise can only be described as another beautiful Hawaiian day. He likes the weather here, the crisp ocean air agreeing with him far better than the polluted atmosphere which usually hangs over Hong Kong like a funeral pall.

A small frown appears on his brow when he thinks back to the ridicule with which his plans were met over half a year ago, how some of the elders had even dared to outright laugh at his idea to set up shop on Oahu. _The Governor's Task Force will hunt you down and lock you up in mere weeks once they catch wind of you!_

He smiles, the frown disappearing. Learning was something he had always excelled at, and the more dangerous and important the lesson, the faster he'd learn. Taking the elders' warning to heart, he'd committed himself to finding out everything there was to know about Hawaii's Governor and his elite _Five-0_ task force. They were indeed a force to be reckoned with.

So he had devised a plan which would take both out of the equation. Strategy was one of his strong suits, becoming a keen and skilled player of _mah jongg_ since he was old enough to count the tiles. But this was more like a variation of the game of _dominoes_ in which one stone sent crashing would topple over rows and rows of other stones.

The abduction of the Five-0's Commander had been the important first stone. Now all he had to do was sit back and watch as one stone crashed into the next and the next until, in the end, not a single stone would remain standing. He'd like to see if the elders would still be laughing at him then.

* * *

Said Five-0 team is still reeling from the impact of the video they received the day before. Danny has given up and given in to his feeling of utter and complete failure, and taken the day off. Or at least, that's what he intended to do. Two hours after calling in sick, Lou, Chin and Kono are standing at his front door.

"There's just no way in hell we're going to let you try and bear the guilt for this alone, Jersey Boy." Lou claps him on the shoulder, then semi-rudely shoves him out of the way. Chin looks at him silently, then grabs his hand and pulls him in close, touching foreheads. All Kono does is wrap her long, graceful arms around him and hold him, hold him until he cracks and starts crying again.

"What if we're too late, Kono?" he sobs. "I saw him the other night, and he looked awful, and he said goodbye, he fucking said _goodbye_ and then the video came and ..."

Kono keeps holding him, making shushing sounds in his ears, stroking his back until the sobbing subsides a little. Then she pulls back, looks into his eyes and says: "We're all scared we're too late, Danny. But we can't give up. We're _ohana_, we owe it to him to continue until we know we've reached the end. Whatever that may be."

They're now standing inside, and Chin and Lou each wrap an arm around his shoulders. "That's right brah, what Kono said." Chin pulls him close. "We're _ohana,_ we're family, and we go on. All of us, together."

Lou bends over his shoulder. "And don't you ever _dare_ try to take the blame in this thing all by yourself again! We're all in it, we're all equally to blame if things go wrong. So dig yourself out of that pity pit, Jersey Boy, get yourself cleaned up and then join us again."

Danny leaves them, rubbing his eyes. He's sad and happy and relieved at the same time. Sad because, well, because. It's just a damn sad situation, whichever way you turn it. But in a strange sense he's also happy because he's just had confirmation that he does not have to carry the whole weight of it all on his shoulders, even though deep inside he still feels he needs to. He's relieved because he's just experienced the famous Five-0 _family safety net_ spring into action. They knew he carried an emotional burden, and they refused to let him carry it by himself.

It still doesn't take away his feeling of being inadequate, his feeling of having failed his best friend, but he knows that they share his pain, share his guilt, and each and every one of them feels like an equal part of the equation. They are the sum total. They are Five-0.

* * *

That morning he wakes by himself. He listens to the sounds filtering through, the ones from outside mingling with the ones inside the cabin. Bird song, somehow hushed, mixed with the crackling sound of the fire and continuous hum of the generator in the back room.

A rush of cold air sweeps across his mattress as the cabin door is opened and shut again, and he manages to burrow down a little further into the blankets covering him. He watches Rhys take off a pair of snow boots and a jacket, then hang them by the door. He works quietly, swiftly, moving a pile of chopped wood from the doorway to the black stove in the middle of the cabin.

He straightens up, cracking his back with a soft *pop*, then grabs an old coffee can, dumps a few spoons of coffee in it from a can on a shelf above the stove, adds hot water from a kettle and sets the thing on the stove to make coffee. Next, he ladles something which looks like porridge into a bowl and starts eating.

As he watches Rhys eat, he suddenly becomes aware of two sensations; one is that he needs to empty his bladder. The other is that he could really handle having a full stomach again. Right at that moment it's as if Rhys feels he's being watched. He peeks over the back of the couch and sees him looking at him.

"Hey there, sunshine. Woke up by yourself today, did you?" He sets down his bowl and comes over to the mattress, kneeling down next to it. "How are you feeling, Steve?"

He licks his lips, feels they're slightly cracked. "Warm. Full. Empty. Thirsty." Rhys grins. "Speaking short hand today, huh?" He nods. "Just still tired." "I bet, it will take some time before you have any semblance of energy again. Just baby steps, my man, baby steps. So, in what order do we need to address your needs?"

He says "bottle first" and Rhys gets up to get the urinal for him. When he returns, he doesn't even try and let him do it himself, and he doesn't think he's capable to do so anyways. When his business is done, he's cleaned and the bottle taken away by Rhys, he gets to indicate his second most urgent need.

"Food and drink." He licks his lips again, something which doesn't go unnoticed by Rhys. "Cracked lips, huh? Well, you know what they say: you don't kiss enough." His green eyes sparkle with humor as he hears an exasperated sound coming from the bed. "I'd volunteer, but ..." He now laughs outright at the look he's getting.

"OK, enough jokes. I'm going to go out on a limb and get you some thin porridge. That should take care of both empty stomach and thirst. After that, I'm gonna put some Vaseline on your lips. This mountain air is probably much drier than what you're used to, and you're probably still a little more dehydrated than I'd like."

Rhys gets up, ladles some porridge from the pot into another bowl, adds some hot water and then comes back. "I watered it down both to make it easier to go down and to cut back on the chance of you getting trouble from excess mucus. Milk does that sometimes, even though you can really use the protein. Let's see how this agrees with you."

He carefully spoon feeds him, and he finds himself wolfing down the warm, sweet semi-solids. It starts warming his insides almost immediately, and to his surprise he starts to sweat. Rhys nods his approval. "Good, looks like your inner furnace is kicking back into action as well. Let me remove a few blankets, I think you'll be able to manage to keep warm a little easier now."

He takes off two blankets from the pile, folding them and placing them on the foot of the mattress. "Just in case." Then he gives him a quick once-over, checking his cheek, his back, chest, and finally his temperature. "Hm, 98F. I'll take that as good enough for now." He looks at him. "Want to sleep again?" He feels warm, and his stomach is nearly full, but somehow the need for sleep isn't there now. "No."

Rhys nods. "Then how about I add some more pillows to your back and hoist you up so you're more in an upright position?" It sounds like a plan to him, being able to get a different view point. Rhys gets some pillows from the other bedroom, then plunks them behind him. Next he offers him an arm. "You've been in hospitals, right?" He nods. "Then you remember those handles above your bed you can hoist yourself up with. See if you can use my arm as if it's one of those, hang on to it."

He looks at the arm, then manages to extract both his arms from underneath the blankets. Lifting them up though ... it takes all his concentration just to reach up and curl his hands around Rhys' wrist and elbow. Then he goes on and tries to lift himself, but the exertion is almost too much to handle, and he groans from the shooting pain flaring through his back, his chest, shit, his whole _body_!

He feels Rhys trying to pull back his arm, hears him say something, but he ignores it, his mind set on success, set on pulling himself up; gritting his teeth he tries again, clamping his hands on the arm and then putting so much tension on his stomach muscles that an intense wave of nausea engulfs him and he spews out the porridge.

Exhausted, defeated and _furious_ at himself for being so weak, so pathetic, he closes his eyes and feels hot tears of shame coursing down his face.

* * *

A courier has dropped off a large Manila envelop, and it's being delivered to John Yun post haste. It is quietly placed on the little coffee table where he sits eating his lunch, waiting for him there until he decides to take a look. When he does, it contains two things.

The first is a San Diego newspaper clipping, regarding a local gift shop owner named Wong Lee. The man has met with an unfortunate accident. While staying late at his store one night, a poorly managed gas pipe broke open, and Wong Lee's smoking habit caused the whole building to be incinerated, including the Wong family's living quarters situated at the second floor. Everything was lost in the fire.

Fortunately, Wong Lee's young wife and two children were not home at the time of the accident. They were staying with the young woman's widowed mother, who had suddenly won a modest but still significant amount of money in the Chinese lottery the day before, and had asked her daughter to come celebrate. The money is the only fortuitous part of the whole story, because it means the elderly woman can now take in her daughter and grandchildren without any immediate worries.

John Yun is a man of his word, and considers this arrangement of the whole affair a possible investment for future loyalty as far as the young woman and her children are concerned.

The second bit of information the envelop presents him may be equally advantageous. It contains the addresses of both the slaughter house the Five-0 Commander was shipped to after his transfer from Wong Lee's gift shop, as well as the addresses of the two men who took him there and then transported him to the next point of contact.

However, it also contains a small piece of paper with an Internet address. He pulls a laptop from beneath the coffee table and opens it. Typing in the address, he frowns at the site which pops up. When the video starts playing his face grows still, and it remains that way until the screen turns black again.

He closes the laptop, gets up and walks towards his desk, pushing an intercom button. "Chen, in here please." He stands by the desk, tapping his fingers, until the man walks in. "I have received a message regarding our Californian partners." He hands him the slip of paper. "Deal with this!" The man quickly walks out of the room again. Just before he reaches the door, Yun looks straight at him. "And Chen, I consider this matter your responsibility. If it is handled unsatisfactory ..."

The man nods quickly, then walks out and softly closes the door.

* * *

"Danny, we just got word and some files from the San Diego guys." Lou looks at Danny, waiting for him to process the news. After the show of team spirit at Danny's house, the team has unanimously decided to get back into the office and start dealing with things head-on. Danny seems to have picked himself far enough off the ground to deal with things right along with the rest of them. "Coming."

Chin is already working on the PC table, typing in addresses and transferring files. The newspaper article of the fire at Wong Lee's gift shop pops up. "Looks like the Triad are busy in San Diego, Danny." Chin nods at Kono. "Seems the whispers my little cuz here heard might prove to have some strong foundations."

Danny and Lou stare at the screens. It's just too much coincidence for there not to be any links between Steve's possible transfer from the island on a Chinese freighter, coupled with the whispers about the Triad, and now a fire at the same gift store the crate Steve supposedly was in was shipped to. "We're gonna run out of leads if they keep this up." Danny frowns, trying hard not to let that sense of depression sneak back into his mind.

"Not necessarily." Chin transfers another file to one of the screens. "The San Diego team came up with something else. I sent them the link to the video, and one of their guys recognized the boxes shown at the back of the truck. Seems there's only one meat package plant that produces that particular type of box. They're going to look into it right now."

Danny nods, glad to hear some good news. "Great, now let's hope they get back to us soon, like yesterday." He looks at the rest of the team. "I think it's time that, however hard this is to say for me, part of our team breaks off from the search for Steve and starts doing a little discrete snooping around within our local Chinese community. If they're going through all this trouble, I think something really, really big is about to happen. And I prefer us being able to prevent that, whatever it is."

They nod in agreement. "I'll do that if it's OK with you, Danny." Kono looks at him, and he nods. "I think you're best suited for the job anyway, Kono. If Chin is OK with that as well, of course." He looks at his team mate. "I know it can be dicey, but hey, it's what we all signed on for." Chin doesn't look happy, but he does have a point.

Within half an hour, they have set their individual tasks and start following the red line through the labyrinth of lies and deceit that has been thrown up the past few weeks. They're finally moving in.

* * *

He has kept his head turned and eyes closed through the whole demeaning ordeal of being undressed, washed down, changed into new long-johns and shirt, having his sheets changed, blankets changed, and being rolled over from one side to another like a slab of beef. When the movement stops, he remains lying still, muscles aching and stomach empty and sore.

Until Rhys suddenly starts speaking right next to him, his voice low and cold.

"Listen here buddy, and listen good; make sure you get this through your thick fucking SEAL skull; failure is not only going to be an option, it's going to be highly likely for a while to come. And you think that was failure? You think after two weeks of major body and system shut down, you're gonna be able to do a full PTA within a couple of days?"

"You know how many people walk away after they coded? I can tell you that right off the bat; a handful, man, just a fucking _handful_! So yeah, you're gonna have to live with failure, and loads of it. What's _not_ an option is you wallowing in self pity!"

"And let me make this very clear to you: the next time you pull a stunt like this, the next time you withdraw into yourself like a moping sissy girl just because you can't do what you want, can't do what you expect, I'm walking out of here and leave your sorry ass to rot in this fucking snowed in hell hole!"

His eyes have been open for the better part of Rhys' speech, and he's taking in every word he's saying. When he senses Rhys is still sitting next to him, he slowly turns his head, staring straight into his eyes. He knows there are tears in his eyes, but they're not tears of self pity; they're tears of embarrassment, of knowing how ungrateful he must have appeared; tears of frustration with the whole situation, from knowing how much he burdens this man who has looked after him like one of his own, and how massively inadequate his own response has been.

"I'm sorry man. I let you down, and I'm really sorry." The words cost him a lot of effort, and he feels bone weary. "I understand if ... you walk out."

Rhys sighs, sits back on his haunches. "Well, at least I got through to you." He looks at him, sees how tired he is, how all this has affected him again. "OK, I may have been a little rough on you there, but really man; right now the only thing that shows you're a SEAL is that refusal to kick the bucket. And that mindset will definitely help you get out of here, but you gotta be smart about things."

He groans, gets up, then walks to the stove. When he comes back, he's got another bowl of watered down porridge. "Now, eat this, then get some sleep. We'll try the whole thing again tomorrow. Only please be so kind not to spit the fucking porridge all over me, OK?"

Rhys gives him a gentle smile, and he knows things are good between them again. He eats the porridge, then uses the urinal, and after Rhys has cleaned him up and tucked him under the blankets again, he nods off in just a few seconds.

Just before he falls into a deep sleep, he thinks _Tomorrow._

Tomorrow is a new day.

* * *

So yeah, things got a little tense there between Rhys and Steve.  
And it seems some emotions between 'McDanno' can be transferred. Like self pity. Which is the last thing they can use right now.


	8. Nerve-(w)racking plans

Two steps forward, three steps back.

* * *

8\. NERVE-(W)RACKING PLANS

The knock on the door in the little alleyway comes as a surprise to the four people lounging around the TV. It's late, close to midnight, and they're not expecting any company.

"Yo, Snake; go see who that is." The Mexican looking man stares at the big, red haired biker reclining in the ancient couch. "Hey _pendejo_, I look like a errand boy to you?" The red head doesn't bother to take his eyes off the film he's watching. "Yeah, you do actually. Now go look." The skinny blond leaning against him giggles as she watches Snake slam his beer on the table and get up.

"Want to move those legs?" Snake looks at the fat man sitting in a recliner, his greasy mouse brown hair tied back in a pony tail. "Yo Blob, move those fucking hams outta the way!" The fat man sighs, pulls his legs off the table to let his companion pass. The blond giggles again, snuggling closer to her red head friend.

Swearing under his breath Snake maneuvers between boxes of motorcycle parts towards the door, where another series of knocks sound. "Yeah yeah, hold your fucking horses." When he reaches the door, he opens a little hatch which allows him to see outside. He frowns; the light above the door seems to be broken, and he can only make out some shadowy figures in the alleyway.

"Yeah, what do you want?" The answer is given in a quiet, soft voice. "We have some additional information on the package from Hawaii that needs to be passed on." Despite a sudden instinctive feeling of foreboding, Snake sighs and starts unlocking the door.

The next minute the door comes flying back against his face, breaking his nose. As he stumbles backward, blinking against the pain, he sees four men slip through the door opening, the last one closing the door. One of them grabs him by the hair and drags him upright; any thoughts of fighting back die a quick death as a gun is placed against his temple.

The two men near the TV, rising from their seated positions at the sudden commotion at the door, freeze as the three remaining men aim their guns at their heads. The blond utters a little squeal of fright. "What the _fuck_ do you guys want?!" growls the red head, sitting on the edge of the couch. He stares at the Asian looking men.

One of them, apparently the leader, moves his gun between the red head and the fat man sitting in the recliner. "We're looking for two men: Big Mike and Snake." The red head shakes his head. "Never heard of them, man." He shoots a furtive glance at his friend, his face bloody, being hauled towards the couch.

The answer doesn't sit well with the Asian man. "Well, in that case we will just have to question you until you come up with the right answers, don't we." He moves his gun towards the little blond on the couch. "Maybe if we make this woman sing you will feel more inclined to provide us with the correct information." He moves closer to the blond, who starts uttering short little gasps of fear.

The red head casually shrugs. "Whatever man, she's a dime a dozen." The Asian man looks at him, then smiles. "In that case we have no further need of her." He casually pulls the trigger twice, the sound muffled by the silencer attached to the weapon, and two red holes appear in the woman's upper chest. Wide-eyed but silent she slowly sags back against the couch; she stays there, still staring in surprise.

Suddenly the fat man starts blubbering. "He's lying man; _he's_ Big Mike!" The furious look from the red head has no impact on the speed with which the words come spewing from the fat man's lips. "He's Big Mike, and that little fucking Mexican weasel there is Snake." The fat man turns and points at the man with the bloodied face.

"Interesting." The Asian man looks at the big biker sitting on the couch. "I thought you had never heard of them?" The man stares back at him, not responding. The Asian man sighs, then turns towards the fat man. "I presume that you are not involved with the transportation of the package from Hawaii?" The fat man hurriedly shakes his head. "No man, I had nothing to do with that." Smiling, the Asian man nods and then calmly puts two bullets in the fat man's head. "Thank you for your cooperation."

The four Asian men then proceed to extract information from Big Mike and Snake, and it takes less than fifteen minutes before blood, teeth and names start pouring from their mouths. Four more bullets end their suffering.

The leader looks around him, slightly frowning. Then he sighs and turns towards one of his accomplishes. "Torch the place. I don't want to leave any evidence." He turns around and walks out the door as the remaining three men start pouring gasoline over the bodies, the couch and all other things flammable.

When they get into the car waiting patiently in the alleyway, an orange glow can be seen underneath the door.

The car drives silently off into the night.

* * *

Kono smiles at the old woman sitting behind the counter of the little Chinese store, giving her a small bow. Both bow and smile are returned with a toothless grin, the face of the old woman wrinkling up like a little dried apple.

As she walks out the door, Kono's smile is quickly replaced by a frown. It has taken her quite some effort to get any information out of the local Chinese people; never asking direct questions, never receiving direct answers. However, she is skilled at the typical Chinese custom of embedding questions within layers of metaphors, within stories, and equally skilled at extracting answers delivered in a similar fashion.

The information she has gathered so far is disturbing. One man's story describing his anticipation of increased firework display sales during the celebration of the 'new governor's instatement' has got her particularly worried. The current Governor has just entered the second half of his first term, and as far as she knows he has no intention of leaving his office.

She needs to run this by her team mates, see what they make of it.

* * *

He has slept almost twenty hours straight. There's a fuzzy memory of Rhys waking him up somewhere during the evening, of drinking some hot soup and emptying his bladder. He was still so exhausted from his failed effort to sit up, and from the ensuing emotions, that he had slipped back into a deep sleep within minutes.

Lying still, his eyes half closed, he mulls over the events of the previous day. He can't be certain, but that display of self-pity, that deep pit he suddenly found himself in aren't really part of his character. There's still no way of knowing for certain what his character really is, as he still doesn't know _who_ he is. Yet it feels 'off' somehow. He doesn't think he usually is very emotional.

Suddenly, an image of the man with the baby-blue eyes pops up in his head. He's gesticulating wildly, looking straight at him while he's talking. _What is the matter with you? You need help! I will pay for it!_ He feels his mouth lift in a slight smile.

"You look like you're thinking of something good."

He opens his eyes and sees Rhys standing next to him, smiling down at him. He utters a small sigh. "Yeah, I was thinking of ..." He frowns, then shakes his head, closing his eyes again.

"Still no names, huh? I wish I could help you with that, but I have no idea why you have amnesia. It could be any of a number of things." Rhys hunkers down next to the mattress.

He opens his eyes and looks at Rhys. "Like what? And when ..."

Rhys sighs. "It could be the drugs they gave you, or the head injury you got somewhere along the way. Hell, it could be one of those, or just all of the things that happened to you these past weeks." He looks at him. "As for when your memory returns, I don't know either. Guess you'll just have to be patient and let it run its own course."

He frowns, frustrated by the whole situation. Not only does it feel horrible not knowing who he is and not to have any memories; the fact that he can't do anything about it is even worse.

Rhys chuckles. "Yeah, I think we can safely say that patience is not your strong suit. Neither is not being in control of things, I think."

Hearing Rhys say that triggers something, some fleeting memory, but just as quickly as it appears it's gone again. Sighing, he says: "Have to use the head." Rhys nods and goes to get the urinal. When they have taken care of his business, Rhys walks to the wood stove and comes back with a bottle of fluid.

"I think it's time we start activating those muscles of yours. You may have well lost up to 20% of your muscle mass by now, if not more, as well as that so-called muscle memory that you developed during training, exercises, etc. Your tendons and ligaments are also stiffening up." Rhys starts pulling back the blankets from the foot end of the mattress.

"I'll start with your feet and lower legs. And if you can still bear it after that, I'll do your upper legs." He gives him a serious look. "I gotta warn you though; this is gonna hurt like a son-of-a-bitch."

He nods, then feels Rhys take off his right sock and push up the lower part of his long-johns to a point above his right knee. The first seconds when Rhys applies the warmed lotion actually feel nice, feel pretty amazing actually. Then Rhys starts kneading the sole of his right foot, and he hisses through his teeth. Rhys throws him a questioning look but he nods, indicating that he can take it.

After five minutes his world has shrunk to a single nucleus of intense, mind boggling anguish. Rhys' manipulation of the sole of his foot awakens the drug damaged nerves, and searing hot fire is running up through his foot to his leg and all the way up his back. His heart speeds up, there are beads of sweat appearing on his forehead, and pretty soon his shirt is drenched. As Rhys applies pressure to a certain point, a white hot flame of anguish burns across his leg to his lower back, and he arches off the mattress, the pain almost unbearable.

"OK, let's take a breather here." Rhys lowers his foot, puts the sock back on and pulls down the blankets. "Oh wow man, you're drenched through and through." Frowning, he quickly pulls the blankets all the way up. "That was a little more intense than I anticipated. Where exactly does it hurt?"

He tries to answer, but finds he literally has to catch his breath first. The pain is still radiating through his back in waves, and he has to fight hard to stay focused, to not completely gray out. He feels Rhys checking his pulse, then one of his eyes is opened. He groans again.

"OK, Steve, I know you're in pain, but I have to know where, and how bad. Try to breath more deeply, see if you can breath through it."

Rhys' voice sounds calm, soothing, and he does his best to follow his instructions. He concentrates on his breathing, willing it to slow down, and after a few minutes he succeeds. The pain is still there but it becomes less severe, and the waves of anguish seem to abate somewhat. He feels Rhys checking his pulse again.

"Very good, Steve. Now, try to open your eyes and concentrate, OK?"

He slowly opens his eyes, his vision blurred by sweat and involuntary tears. He sees the green eyes looking down on him, notices a concerned frown on Rhys' face. "Am ... am good now" he manages to stutter. His breathing is still ragged, but his heart beat is slowing down. The pain becomes manageable.

"So, what was it; muscle pain, nerve pain? And where; your foot, leg?" Rhys reaches behind him, picking up a clean towel, then bends over and wipes the sweat from his brow and neck. "That really was a lot rougher on you than I anticipated. Think you can answer my questions already?"

He manages to keep focused on Rhys, moving slightly to try and ease the discomfort in his back a little. "Searing ... pain, fire." He draws a deep breath, then continues. "Burned up ... from foot to leg." Another deep breath. "Then to back. Agony." He stops, exhausted.

Rhys frowns. "Sounds like nerve pain to me. _Dammit!_ Those fucking drugs caused more damage than I thought they did." He sighs. "OK, so we'll have to take it slow. I don't want to cause you extreme pain, but I'm afraid that will happen whether we like it or not."

He manages to lift a corner of his mouth. "Not ... not liking it."

Rhys smiles. "I bet. You've had your share of pain, that's for sure. However, we do have to work on your muscles, because if we don't, well, you might end up in a wheel chair. Don't think you'll like that either."

He looks at him. "We'll do your other foot tomorrow, then a leg the day after, and your other leg the day after that. We'll move up each day, then when I've done all your limbs we'll start at the bottom again. Hopefully that will be less intense."

He nods, thinks it's a good plan; he doesn't think he can take any more today. Groaning, he tries to shift again as the pain in his back goes beyond uncomfortable.

"You still in pain?" Rhys is concerned, watching him try and arch his back. "Your back hurting?" When he nods, he continues: "Look, I didn't give you any food first because I wasn't really keen on the chance of you puking all over the place again. Which I'm pretty sure you would've done, now that we've seen how badly it hurts."

He walks over to the wood stove, ladles some freshly made porridge into a bowl, then comes back. "So here's what's gonna happen. You're going to eat this, not watered down this time. The calcium and assorted minerals in here will help you relax and possibly ease the pain a bit."

He sets down the bowl, then gently lifts him a little higher against the pillows. Even that slight movement causes white hot pain to shoot through his back again, and he groans.

"Sorry man, but choking's not an option either. Here, try it."

He feeds him spoon after spoon, and the porridge is hot and sweet and good. After he finishes the bowl, he feels his stomach is full for the first time in days. Then Rhys helps him with the urinal, cleans him up, and then gently completely rolls him over on his left side. The pain abates slightly.

Next, Rhys goes back to the stove, pulls an old-fashioned metal hot water bottle from beneath it and fills it with hot water. He grabs a towel, wraps it around the bottle and walks towards the mattress.

"I'll put this against your back, heat often helps to alleviate nerve pain. But you gotta tell me if it feels good or not, OK?"

He nods, and Rhys pulls back the blanket and gently places the hot water bottle against his lower back. After a few seconds he feels heat starting to radiate through his back, and combined with the warm porridge in his stomach, it starts to push back the pain. He sighs in relief.

"I take it that feels good." Rhys smiles down at him. "OK, now you try and grab a few more hours of sleep. Hopefully most of the pain will be gone when you wake up again."

As Rhys pulls up the blankets and readjusts his woolen hat, he feels himself slip into a deep slumber again.

* * *

Danny puts down the phone, frowning. He's just been informed by his San Diego colleagues that the search of the slaughterhouse has come up empty. _"All we found was a blanket, which is being processed now. The rest of the place was clean; somebody likes bleach there."_ All he can hope now is that the blanket will provide some proof that Steve was there, that they're searching in the right direction, going down the right track.

He looks up as Kono walks in. "Hey Danny, Cuz. I've heard a few things that I want to run by you guys." She tells them about the tidbits of information she has been able to extract, then proceeds to relay the story of the fire work shop owner.

"Now that sounds strange." Chin taps his fingers on the PC table. "The Governor is only half-way through his first term; why would they think that there will be a new governor?"

Danny mulls the info over in his mind. "Well, there's not going to be a new governor. Unless, of course, somebody takes out this one."

They look at each other, shocked by the implications. "Well I'll be ...you think that's why the Triad is here? To assassinate the Governor?!" Chin looks at Danny, who shrugs. "I don't know, the evidence is pretty flimsy. However, it does make sense in a way."

Chin nods. "Divert our attention off the island by kidnapping Steve, making sure we use all our resources to find him. Then plan an attack on the Governor, knowing we won't catch it until it's too late. The reverberation would come right back at Five-0."

"And because we're supposed to be the Governor's special task force, which includes protecting _him_, the new Governor might well decide to have Five-0 disbanded, like that first time." Danny rakes a hand through his hair, frowning.

"Two crows with one stone." Chin has a bemused look on his face. "Pretty audacious plan, even for the Triad."

Kono speaks out. "Only problem for them is that we found out their plan."

Danny nods. "But we need a hell of a lot more evidence to make this stick, before we can even run it by the Governor."

"Guess I'm going back to China Town then."

Kono gets up and walks out of HQ.

* * *

Five-0 may have just stumbled upon the Triad's plans. But will that be enough to stop them?

And how close are they to actually finding Steve?


	9. Open season

"Those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."  
-Ernest Hemingway -

* * *

9\. OPEN SEASON

He lies quietly on his side, watching Rhys rummaging around the wood stove. The pain in his back has retreated to a level where he barely notices it anymore. He can feel little eddies of cold air streaming over his face, but he's comfortably warm underneath his blankets, his head protected by the woolen cap Rhys insists he wears.

Closing his eyes again, he tries to pick through the vague memories in his head. He knows he's in a cabin, knows Rhys is taking care of him because - what was it? - because otherwise somebody close to him would be in trouble. He remembers the additional information Rhys has given him, that he has been abducted, kidnapped.

Why would somebody want to kidnap him? He frowns as a memory pops up into his head, a memory of _two_ voices talking inside the cabin, arguing. So where was the second person now? As far as he knows, only Rhys has been with him these last few days. He opens his eyes again as he hears Rhys load more wood in the wood stove.

He scrutinizes the man standing by the fire. Dressed in cargo pants, a thick woolen black sweater hugging his muscular shoulders, Rhys is a big man with auburn hair. It has probably come in handy in taking care of him, having to move his body around.

Suddenly another image superimposes itself over the scene inside the cabin. It's the image of a short, blond-haired man, the man with the baby-blues. Much shorter than Rhys, yet muscular as well, he sees him running, holding a weapon.

Maybe the man is part of that other memory, the one of the SEAL team. He frowns again, wishing he could access his memories, could find out who he is. Sighing, he opens his eyes again and sees that Rhys has noticed that he's awake.

"Hi there." Rhys ambles up to the mattress, then hunkers down. "How do you feel? You've been sleeping for a while again, it's evening already." He quickly checks his temperature, scrutinizes him. "How's the pain?"

He scrapes his throat. "Pain's OK. Can manage." Slowly, he puts his hand into the mattress beneath him, then with a lot of effort manages to slightly move his upper body, grimacing. "Sore muscles though."

Rhys nods his understanding. "How about if I try and do something about those sore muscles, see if we can limber them up a little. I promise I'll be careful." He looks at him. "It's predominantly your back, right? Lower back, near your hips?"

He nods, trying to shift his legs.

"Don't bother, I'll help you with that. Use the head first?" Seeing Steve nod, he gets up and returns with the urinal. After the business is done, the bottle removed and cleaned, Rhys gets the bottle of massage lotion from near the wood stove.

"I'll just give your lower back a once-over, see if we can get some of the kinks out. I'm gonna roll you over on your stomach, OK? And when we're finished, I'll give you something to eat and drink. Deal?"

He nods. The pillow is removed from underneath his head, and Rhys slowly and gently rolls him over on his stomach. It feels uncomfortable, putting tension on his lower back. Rhys then rolls up his shirt, causing him to break out in goosebumps as the cold air flows over his naked skin.

"I'm gonna pull down your pants a bit as well, otherwise they'll get soggy from the lotion." He hears a smile in Rhys' voice. "Don't worry, I won't take advantage of you. OK, ready? You know that, no matter how careful I am, this will hurt."

He nods.

Even though he knows what's coming, thinks he is prepared for it, the pain that shoots up his body as Rhys starts gently manipulating the muscles in his lower back takes his breath away. He pushes himself into the mattress as white hot fire races along his nerves, slams his jaws shut as he tenses up. There's sweat breaking out on his forehead, running down his face in small rivulets.

"Just let me know when it gets to be too much, OK? Warn me when to stop. Trust me, dealing with this pain is sapping your energy as well." Rhys throws him a concerned look while he continues to softly knead the muscles in his back, covering the area between his buttocks and his waist.

He barely manages a nod, caught up in the struggle to ride it out, to maintain his self control. Suddenly the right side of his lower back feels like someone is sticking a fiery hot poker in it, searing away his flesh, burning down deep into his core. It paralyzes him, so he's not even able to warn Rhys he should stop.

When Rhys pushes down on his back again, manipulating the muscles, the area in his back explodes in anguish. He utters a long, pain filled groan; then he blacks out. 

* * *

Danny's head is moving restlessly on his pillow. His dream is a collection of jumbled images; of the Governor being shot; of Steve jumping in front of the Governor and being shot; of himself trying to warn Steve as a little red dot slowly creeps upwards over his back towards his head ...

Then one image starts overlaying all the others; an image of the Steve he had seen several nights ago, broken, bloodied, gaunt. He starts breathing rapidly, moaning, not wanting to repeat the horror of hearing Steve say those dreadful two words again. _Bye, Danno._

Instead, the image smiles at him, a flash of humor in its eyes. _Come on, Danny. Dead?! Me? I'm super SEAL, remember. Or so you keep telling me._

His breathing slows down a little, the eyes behind the closed eyelids focusing on the face of his friend. _But you said goodbye ..._

Dream Steve shrugs his shoulders. _I guess I almost went that time. _ He grins at Danny. _But I'm still here, still waiting for you to come get me._ Then a quizzical look appears on Steve's face. _You are coming to get me, right?_

Danny frowns. Of course he's coming to get Steve, even if it's the last thing he does in this life.

_Good. I'll be waiting._

* * *

When he resurfaces back to consciousness, the pain is a deep seated, pulsating wave, running its course through his body. He's gasping, and he struggles to get his breathing under control. Rhys is bent over him, frowning.

"What did I say, you idiot?! Warn me, I said. Let me know when it gets too much. You're being a fucking pig-headed SEAL again!"

He manages to whisper "no" just before another wave courses through his body again, focusing on his lower back. Squeezing his eyes shut, he pushes himself into the mattress, trying to ease the pain. He vaguely senses Rhys' moving off the mattress, then his hands gently moving over his lower back.

When Rhys reaches the area just above his right hip, near his bottom rib, he sucks in his breath, hissing between his teeth. He's graying out again, fighting hard to stay conscious. When Rhys speaks to him, he barely registers the words.

"Steve, I'm gonna take a closer look at this. Something's wrong."

Rhys gets up, rummages through a cabinet, then returns with a small flashlight. Next, he pushes Steve's shirt up even further, then switches on the flashlight, shining it on Steve's back. His right hand gently goes over the area on his back, stopping when Steve's breath hitches in his chest and he tenses up again.

After a moment, Rhys continues, using the flashlight so he can better see the skin. After a few minutes of his fingers carefully tracking along Steve's skin, he softly says "Son of a bitch", sits back on his haunches, and sighs. Next, he pulls down the shirt, pulls the pants up over it and then bends down over Steve, tapping his right cheek.

"You still with me, Steve?" Rhys asks while checking his pulse, then pulling back one of his eyelids.

Groaning, he mutters "don't" while slightly pulling away his head. The pain is slowly abating, his heartbeat slowing down. The pain is now retreating to the level where he can manage it again, where it does not control him anymore. Opening his eyes, he sees Rhys staring at him, a peculiar look on his face. "What?" he whispers, trying to move his arms in order to be more comfortable.

Rhys shakes his head. "First things first. What feels more comfortable: lying on your stomach, your back or on your side?" He throws Steve a questioning look.

He frowns, trying to evaluate the different scenarios, then says "Side, left one".

Rhys nods, then carefully rolls him over until he's lying on his left side. While balancing him with his right hand, he uses his left hand to grab two blankets, partially unfold them, then roll them up and place them against Steve's back. Next, he let's him roll a little further so he's reclining against the blankets.

Finally Rhys turn back the blankets, positions Steve's left leg in a slightly bent position, then covers his legs again. He sits back on his haunches, giving Steve another, peculiar look. Bending down his head, Rhys scrapes his throat, then looks up again.

"Somebody did a real fucking number on you, man. And I should've caught it, should've realized what was going on." He sighs. "I was just so busy keeping you alive, thinking the little signs were just all part of how badly they treated you, possibly the effects of the drugs they gave you." Rhys shakes his head, obviously not happy with himself.

He stares at him, watches several emotions cross his face; anger, guilt. It doesn't make sense to him. Rhys is the one who has kept him alive, who took care of him. What did he do wrong? "So ... I'm still here ..." he says softly.

Rhys looks up, a grim smile on his face. "Yeah, you're still here. And let me tell you; the fact that you are is because you've got an army of guardian angels, an army that I'm sure by now is so seriously overworked that they're laid up somewhere in some heavenly ICU."

His lips turn up in a little smile at the statement the other man just made. "Funny" he says softly. He watches Rhys' mouth turn up in a quick smile, then his look turns serious again.

"Actually no; it's not funny. It's more like a fucking miracle." He sighs again, then continues: "Your back ache is probably the result of a severely bruised kidney. I did notice your urine was slightly pink, but I thought it was the drugs, might have been the convulsions. And you were sore all over, so I never noticed you having pain in that particular area."

He frowns, knows a bruised kidney might have serious complications if not treated correctly. Wondering how he got it, how Rhys has found out, he softly asks: "How do you know?"

There's an angry look on Rhys' face again, but it's obvious the anger is directed at someone other than himself, or Steve. "How do I know? I know because there's a perfect imprint of a heavy soled boot on your back. It's vague, starting to fade, and the largest part of the contusion most likely is on the inside. But it's very clearly a fucking boot." 

* * *

He's grinning in his sleep. The voluptuous red head is walking towards him, her hips swaying seductively as she drops the last bit of clothing on the floor. "Oh yeah, baby, come to Papa." Just as he stretches out his arms, ready to grab hold of the woman so willing to share his bed with him, his dream is rudely interrupted by the shrill sound of a telephone.

Blinking, feeling the dream slip from his mind like wispy clouds, Archibald "Archie" Bradly turns his head and stares at the alarm clock on the night stand. It's not even three in the morning. Swearing, he grabs the phone off the hook. "This better be _real_ fucking good!"

"Shut up, Archie! You listen, and you listen good." He recognizes the voice as belonging to Ray, his buddy from the motorcycle club. "What's up, Ray? And why the fuck do you call at this hour?!" The man on the other side is breathing rapidly, and when he speaks his voice is low. "They just popped Duck."

He feels his heart stop for a second, then continue at a much faster rate. "Duck is _dead_ ?! What happened?" His friend continues to feed him information. "He went out for a piss back in the alley. They heard some shouting, then three pops and when they went outside, they found Duck on the ground. Some junk said he saw three Chinamen drive off in a black car."

Archie feels a cold hand gripping his heart. Chinamen. And they killed Duck. He almost misses what Ray says next. "Big Mike and Snake are dead as well, Archie." He swallows convulsively. "How ... when ..." Ray snorts. "You should read the newspaper more often, asshole. They were found inside that little den they always used for stripping bikes. Big Mike, Snake, Fat Joe and that little blond trollop Mike was hanging on to lately. Looks like they were tortured, shot, then set on fire."

The arm holding the phone slowly drops, Ray's voice coming at him from a distance. Big Mike, Snake, Duck ... all dead. He groans. That fucking video. He had warned Duck not to post it, but the man had laughed, posted it anyway. _Just fucking with them, Archie. No harm, no foul._ Duck had a nasty, sadistic streak to him, which had been very obvious in the way he had rough-handled the unconscious man entrusted to their care at the slaughterhouse over a week ago.

_We're supposed to keep him alive, Duck! If you keep treating him like this, he'll never make it to Aberdeen._ Duck had sneered at him, called him a sissy, but Archie had this uncomfortable feeling, this nagging sense that this was going to go bad for them. _The orders were very specific, Duck. And this is the fucking Triad, man! _ Again, Duck had sneered at him. _Fucking Chinamen. I ain't scared of those creeps._ And now Duck was dead, as well as the other two men involved with the transportation of the man abducted from the islands.

Archie puts the phone back to his ear. "Ray? I need the number of Tommy Moore." He listens to Ray for a few seconds, then cuts off the rest. "I don't give a flying fuck whether or not you're supposed to give it out! I need to warn Tommy, man. Those fucking Chinamen are running a clean-up detail ..."

He writes down a number, slams down the phone and jumps out of bed. Breathing hard, he grabs an overnight bag, throws it on the bed and then starts emptying the contents of a drawer cabinet into it. Zipping the bag, he throws on a pair of jeans, stuffs the piece of paper with the number into his pocket, puts on socks, a t-shirt and a pair of boots, then throws on his leather jacket.

Grabbing his keys from the nightstand, he makes his way down into the basement, straps the bag to the back of the bike, opens the small outside door and quietly rolls his bike up the ramp leading to the street. He zips up his jacket, grabs the helmet hanging from his mirror and then turns the keys in the ignition. He only needs to use the kick-start twice before the bike starts up.

Shifting down into first gear, flipping up the side stand, he lets out the clutch while giving gas, and disappears into the night. 

* * *

Chin sticks his head into he doorway of Danny's office. "We have the results back from the SDPD." Danny looks up, a questioning frown on his face. "San Diego?" Chin nods. "Did they find anything?" "Yes. You might want to come out here."

Danny gets up out of the chair, stretches his back, then walks out of his office to join Chin at the PC table. "OK, so what did they find." Chin calls up a document on one of the hanging screens. "They found blood traces and hair on the blanket. When compared against the data we supplied, it was a 100% match; both blood and hair are Steve's."

Danny remains quiet, staring at the document on the screen. Then he sighs, running a hand through his hair. "So that definitely puts Steve in the slaughterhouse. Or at least proofs that whoever abducted him, was there." Chin nods, then says: "There's more." He looks at Danny, wondering how he'll react to the next bit of information.

"There was another small stain on the blanket, which turned out to be mucus containing stomach contents." Danny swallows. "Vomit?" Nodding, Chin continues. "Again, it matched Steve's data. When they analyzed it further, they found traces of a sedative. It took some time but they finally determined that it's a sedative cocktail used by veterinarians. Or was used by vets until twenty years or so ago."

Processing the information, Danny frowns at Chin. He doesn't really want to ask the next question, dreading the answer. "Why did they stop using it?" Chin sighs. "Because research showed that there was an unacceptable percentage of animals that did not survive being sedated with this particular cocktail. Furthermore, it was shown to cause severe nerve damage. It's been banned for a long time now."

There's a shocked look on Danny's face. _... did not survive ... severe nerve damage ..._ Then the shock turns into anger, the anger into rage. "And they used it on _Steve_ ?!" Chin throws him a sad, compassionate look. "It looks that way, brah." Danny slams both hands on the PC table, turns around and starts pacing, his mind awash with jumbled thoughts.

Steve had been abducted, had the crap beaten out of him in the process; then he was hauled onto a ship, stuffed in a crate and dumped in a meat truck. To top it all off, they had used a sedative on him which was proven to be often lethal to animals and could cause severe nerve damage.

Danny just can't wrap his mind around it all. "Fuck!" The expletive comes rushing out of him, accompanied by a fist slamming on the PC table.

Just then Lou and Kono come walking in. "Hey, Jersey, keep that thing in one piece, will you?" Lou walks up to them, frowning at Danny's foul mood. "What's got your knickers in a twist?" Chin quickly fills them in with regard to the info supplied by the SDPD. Lou's frown deepens, while Kono has a worried look on her face.

"OK" says Danny, walking back to the PC table. "Let's add up what we've got so far." He stares at the screen. "Chin, pull up a map of the West Coast, please." When the map appears on screen, Danny looks at it for a while, collecting his thoughts. "So, where's this slaughterhouse located?" Chin quickly looks down, clicks through some files, then enters an address on the map.

"It's on West Washington Avenue, right off the I-15." They look at the little marker that pops up on the map. "OK, and where did Jerry find that last message, the one that stated that, ehm ..." Danny is unable to finish the sentence, but they all know what he means.

Chin flicks through some files again. "On the Olympic Peninsula Craigslist, in Washington state." The map zooms out, now showing all three states on the West Coast. "If they took the I-15 North, they could've picked up the I-5 at LA; from there it's a straight drive all the way up." Lou looks at the map, then at Danny, who nods. "Seems like the most likely scenario, yes."

Chin zooms in on the Olympic Peninsula. "Problem is, we don't know where they went after that. Route 101 runs all along the peninsula. And there's Olympic National Park in the middle." They stare at the screen as he zooms in on the vast, green area in the middle of the peninsula.

"That's gonna be like looking for a fucking needle in a haystack if they are keeping him there." Lou frowns, looking at Danny. The blond detective says nothing, just stares at the screen, his eyes boring into the image. They're closing in on where Steve might be, slowly but surely putting together bits and pieces of info that tell them where their friend is being hidden.

The question is: how much time do they have left to find him?

How much time does _Steve_ have left?!


	10. Zeroing in

NOTE: Some of you are slightly annoyed at the scenes of washing, cleaning, other personal matters, etc. In movies, a guy gets shot, falls off a building and then jumps up to catch the bad guy. In reality, when you've got a head injury, then hypothermia, gone through cardiac arrest and on top of that have to deal with being sedated with bad drugs and have to go through withdrawal, well ... But don't worry, things will pick up speed soon.

* * *

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

\- Carl Sagan -

* * *

10\. ZEROING IN

The phone on the mahogany desk rings twice before John Yun picks it up. "Yes?" He listens for a few minutes, then sighs. "You have no idea where this other man is, Chen Zhi?"

The answer causes him to frown. "That is not what I want to hear. I do not want any problems from the mainland interfering with our plans. You have exactly three days."

He listens again, then interrupts. "Three days, preferably less. Then I want to have absolute confirmation that any loose ends have been tied off."

Just before he hangs up, Yun adds: "And Chen Zhi, if your failure to comply interrupts my plans ... don't bother coming back. Instead, start looking behind you."

With that, he disconnects.

* * *

Danny can't believe it's going on three weeks since Steve has been kidnapped. It has taken every ounce of self-control, every bit of will power to keep going, to not let the vortex of anxiety, guilt and abject fear pull him down into insanity. He's just talked to Grace on the phone, repeating the same daily litany.

"Yes Monkey, as soon as we know where Uncle Steve is, you'll be the first to know. Like I told you twice yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that." He'd listened, then closed his eyes to prevent tears from spilling over, and his voice had cracked. "I miss him too, Monkey; I miss him very much."

He sits quietly in his chair, rubbing his face, emotions raw. It's killing him, having to tell his daughter day after day that they still haven't found Steve. All in all, they don't have any hard evidence, no solid proof to work with. Like the detective from the San Diego PD reminded him over the phone.

_All you have are assumptions, Detective Williams; no evidence, no hard facts. We can't work with that._ _The ads could be mere coincidence, and all the lab results indicate is that Commander McGarrett has been in contact with the blanket. I'm sorry. I understand your frustration, but surely you know we need to follow procedure in this. And I know the WSP in Seattle will tell you the same._

He had wanted to scream, yell that _of course_ he understood there was a fucking procedure,_ of course _hard evidence and proof were the preferred tools for an investigation! But this was his partner they were talking about, his _friend_, and lack of evidence didn't mean he was simply _gone_ !

It tears him apart, knowing that his partner has been beaten, drugged with illegal sedatives and, for all they know, is lying somewhere seriously injured, possibly dying or dead, because lack of hard evidence prevents any of the law enforcement agencies from springing into action.

Standing up, sighing, he hitches up his pants as they start sliding down. He frowns, then tightens his belt a further notch. The long hours, little sleep and lack of appetite due to the continuous worry about Steve have made him lose weight; has turned his face into a tight, gaunt mask; caused dark circels to appear underneath his eyes and deep lines to be etched into his face.

Like Lou said, trying to find Steve is like looking for a needle in a haystack. However, by now Danny Williams has reached the point where he will pull said haystack apart, hay-stalk by fucking hay-stalk if need be, if it will turn up Steve. Even if it will cost him his badge. Or his life.

* * *

Archie pulls up into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant at Lebec, just off the I-5. He's been careful to take the back roads, constantly checking whether he's being followed. So far he's not seen anybody who seems to have an unusual interest in him, and it looks as if he has managed to get out of San Diego unseen. Looks like he has managed to evade the Chinamen.

Ray's phone call keeps replaying in his head; the news of the other two bikers being tortured, and then Duck getting shot is a bad omen. The Chinamen are going after everybody involved with the kidnapped guy from Honolulu, which means he's next on the list. He wonders if they managed to extract Tommy's name from Duck before he died.

He puts the bike on the side-stand, runs a chain through the rear wheel and locks it, then walks into the restaurant. After ordering a coffee he sits down in one of the booths, takes off his jacket, then pulls the piece of paper with Tommy's number out of the pocket of his jeans. He turns it over in his hand, contemplating what to do next. Finally, he pulls his cell phone out of his jacket, then dials the number on the paper.

"Hey Tommy, it's Archie. We got some serious problems."

* * *

He wakes up because his stomach is acting up, his intestines feel weird. They're rumbling, almost cramping, and he suddenly realizes why. _Oh shit !_ Immediately he realizes the wry humor of that thought. _Talk about literal ..._

Squirming, he manages to slightly move into a different position, and the pressing feeling in his lower abdomen lets up a little. Unfortunately, this now makes him aware of his full bladder. He groans mentally, closing his eyes, trying again to find a more comfortable position.

When he opens his eyes ten minutes later, sweating and almost panicking at the increasing pressure in his bowels, he finds Rhys standing next to the mattress, arms crossed, frowning down on him.

"I can think of just two reasons why you're squirming like a worm on a hook. Are you in pain?"

He shakes his head, whispering "no" before he needs to change his position again. He looks up at Rhys, a pleading but embarrassed look on his face. Much to his disgust, a grin appears on Rhys' face.

"Then I guess it's the dreaded Number Two. Right?"

Blushing, he nods. "Need ... to go ... badly." Still grinning, Rhys disappears and quickly returns with something that looks like a flattened, mint green toilet seat with a steel bottom and a curved square attachment on top.

"Something I had picked up after I came to believe you might actually live. Thought it might come in handy at some point. Like today." He winks.

He looks at the contraption, then at Rhys, and shakes his head. What Rhys is asking him to do is something that goes against his very instincts, against the very grain. You don't _crap_ where you sleep!

"I don't think you'll make it to the toilet, you know."

He frowns, then squirms to push himself higher in the bed. The movement causes pain to erupt in his lower back, and he hisses through his teeth. "Help .. get up." He is dead set on doing this the _right_ way, and he grits his teeth, ignoring the white hot pain as he tries to move again.

"No. Just no."

He looks up, glowering, at Rhys standing there, arms akimbo and a calm but stubborn look on his face. Right, then he'll do it himself. Moving his legs, trying to will strength into the weak muscles, he tries to push off the mattress, which in turn increases the pressure in his lower abdomen and turns the white hot pain into liquid fire. He groans, feeling sweat breaking out on his brow. "Dammit ... help me!"

"I said no. Ain't happening. I'll just stand here and watch you crap the bed. Seen you do worse ..."

"F ... _fuck_ you!" He is furious, both at his weakened state and the refusal of the man standing there to help him preserve some semblance of dignity, some degree of self-respect.

"Dude, come on. Be reasonable. You're in no condition, and as this is the first time in weeks, it might take quite a while. You're not gonna be able to sit for long, let alone walk over." Rhys sighs. "I'm sure you used bedpans in the hospital ..."

"_Hated_ that!"

"Sure, who doesn't. But that's what you're gonna use now. I'll help you get on, then I'll go outside for as long as you need, give you all the privacy you want, and then I'll come back in and clean you." A little smile appears on his lips at the look Steve throws him. "Yeah, like a fucking baby."

He stares at him, suddenly understanding the last remark is simply to remind him that he really is no more than that, a helpless baby. He also realizes that Rhys is telling him that things are as they are, that it's not his fault, that he can't help being so weak, shouldn't be embarrassed. Sighing, he nods, almost imperceptibly.

A hour later, Rhys has been proven right in every aspect.

Yes, it took a while, a very long while actually, and no, he could never have sat up for so long. He was barely able to manage the semi-reclined position Rhys had placed him in, his back against a stack of pillows. By the time Rhys returned to the cabin he was whimpering, fighting to keep himself from graying out as his lower back was invaded by a roaring, clawing animal tearing him apart inside.

When Rhys gently moved him to remove the mess he had produced, he actually did black out from the pain. By the time he became aware of things again, he had been cleaned and redressed. Rhys had placed him on his left side again, rolled up blankets and a warm water bottle against his lower back. The roaring animal was withdrawing.

"Hey, there you are again. Better?" Rhys calmly looks at him. "I just want to know one thing: is everything gonna be such a fucking battle with you? Because for the time being, I think it will prove to be futile on your part." He suddenly throws him a cocky grin. "I could throw you over my shoulder and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do against it, SEAL or not."

He blinks, still trying to get a grip on reality again. Staring at Rhys through his eyelashes, he takes in the humor in his eyes. "Wait ... 'till I'm better." He manages to lift his lips in a little smile, sees a returning grin on Rhys' face.

"Challenge accepted. Now, please do me a favor, and until then just do what I suggest. Saves me a lot of headaches, and you all kinds of assorted other aches." He winks at him. "Your time will come, Steve, don't worry. I'm convinced it's all uphill from here on out."

* * *

Chin is looking through the files they received from the SDPD, frowning. He then pulls up a site with the latest news from San Diego, scrolling through the site until he hits a small article. 'Motorcycle gang member shot in alleyway'. He reads the contents of the article, then scrolls to another article on the same site. 'Three dead in suspected arson'.

"Something interesting catch your attention?" Lou ambles up to his team mate. Chin nods. "Yeah, something did, actually. Here, look." He zooms in on the file concerning the deaths of the three bikers. Lou scans through the article, then sucks in his breath. "Well, I'll be ... that can't be just another coincidence!"

Chin nods. "That's what I thought. And look here." He pulls up the article about the biker shot in the alley again. "Less than twenty-four hours later, and the guy was associated with the same biker gang." Lou frowns. "I'm sure SDPD will tag all this with the label 'assumptions', but I think we should tell Danny about it."

Just then Danny comes walking out of his office. "Tell Danny about what?" Chin quickly gives him a condensed version of what they found. "So, one of those three bikers killed in the fire worked at the same slaughterhouse they found the blanket at. They find evidence of them having been tortured, and less than a day later one of their associates turns up dead."

Chin nods absentmindedly, scrolling through the articles again, reading the contents. "Yeah, and get this: a witness at the bar the last biker got shot swears he saw three Asian men jump in a car and drive off afterwards." They look at each other, then Danny scrapes his throat. "OK, Chin, try to find out more about who the close associates of these guys are, where they're at, where they work; everything."

Running a hand over his face, Danny thinks hard. "So it looks like the Triad took care of Steve's transportation off the island to San Diego, where the Chinese gift shop guy arranged for his further transportation. And apparently that was handled by members of some local bike gang, one of whom worked at the slaughterhouse they found the blanket at and where those boxes are produced we saw in the video."

The memory of the video causes a small wave of nausea to course up from his stomach; the images of an unmoving Steve, cuffed and chained, bruised, battered ... he doesn't think he'll ever be able to scrub those from his mind. What he does know is that he's willing to do anything to get his hands on the people who did this to his friend.

He sees Lou and Chin staring at him, a worried look on their faces. He throws them a small, tight smile. "I'm OK. Just thinking of all the possible ways in which I can kill the bastards that did this to Steve." They nod in complete understanding. Danny sighs.

"So, has Kono come back from China Town yet?"

* * *

He's half reclining against a pile of pillows, one pillow in the small of his back. After recuperating from what he still considers an embarrassing ordeal, dozing while the warm water bottle helped ease the pain in his lower back, he discovered he was hungry. Starving, actually.

When he told Rhys, he had carefully turned and half lifted him, then stuffed several pillows behind his back, placing a smaller one down by his lower back. Then he had gone over to the stove and gotten a bowl of porridge.

"How about you try and feed yourself this time? If you can't, don't be upset."

He knows it's Rhys' way of trying to give him back some sense of self-sufficiency, some form of independence despite all the care he still needs. Rhys had put a simple wooden bed table on his knees, then placed the bowl of porridge on it and handed him a spoon.

He is shocked by his lack of energy, the weakened state he's in. Just bringing the spoon to his mouth demands every bit of will power he can muster. Savoring the warm, sweet porridge, he manages to drag his arm up again for another bite, then notices how his hand trembles, almost spilling the food.

"That's a full work out in itself, isn't it?" Rhys looks at him, monitoring his progress. "Want me to help you with the last bit? You look pretty exhausted."

He looks at him, then shakes his head. "Need to do this." Ten minutes later, he puts the last spoon full of the now lukewarm porridge in his mouth. His hand slumps down on the covers, his last energy completely spent. The fact that he has managed to feed himself is worth it though.

"I got some tea for you if you want. And I'm gonna help you with that, you've done enough for now."

He gratefully nods, not protesting when Rhys holds the sipping cup to his mouth, drawing in the warm liquid loaded with honey. When the cup is empty, he lets his head fall back, wearily looking out from between heavy eyelids.

Rhys gets up, takes the dirty dishes to the simple wooden counter along the wall, then pours hot water from the stove in the sink. He watches him, content to just lie there, stomach full, satisfied but exhausted from feeding himself. Then he suddenly frowns. "There were two of you ... right?" He watches Rhys become still, then turn towards him.

"Yeah, there were two of us. Why?"

His mind is going over the few memories he has, the argument he overheard days before. It suddenly clicks in his mind. "He's the one who ... who helped abduct me." Rhys walks over, drying his hands on a tea towel. Standing next to the mattress, he looks down.

"Seems those gray cells of yours are starting to work again as well." He sighs. "Yeah, he's the one that was gonna keep you up here in the cabin." Rhys hunkers down, staring into his eyes. "But he got a call from the guy bringing you over that you were in really bad shape, and he knew he didn't have the skills to care for you. So ..."

He watches Rhys' green eyes turn dark, a far-away look on his face. There are emotions flitting over his face; anger, guilt, something else. He knows Rhys has been drawn into this situation against his will, instinctively senses that this man really isn't the type who normally is involved in this kind of thing. "So?" he asks in a soft voice.

Rhys blinks, then looks at him. "So he called me, asked me to help him, help _you_. From what he described I figured you needed urgent medical help. I also knew they would never call a doctor, take you to a hospital. Besides not wanting my ... my friend to get in trouble, I just couldn't turn my back on somebody who was badly hurt. And you were, badly hurt I mean. When I saw you in that truck ..."

He closes his eyes, tries to call up a memory of what Rhys is telling him. What comes is a fleeting sensation of extreme cold, chilling him to the core; of excruciating pain, of ... being chained up? He shudders, his eyes flying open, immediately drawing Rhys' attention to him.

"You remember that, being in the truck?" Rhys looks at him, a worried frown on his face.

Hesitating, he answers: "Not sure ... something about freezing, pain. And something about chains." He sighs; it's obviously he's been through hell, but he's convinced he doesn't need to remember that particular part of his journey. When he glances at Rhys, he sees he has an angry look on his face. "What's wrong?"

"Just the fact that you remember that ... Man, you have no idea how fucking mad I was when I found you!" Rhys scowls. "Badly injured, sedated, cuffed and chained; stuck in a meat truck with temperatures around freezing, just a soiled thin blanket covering you. Fuck, you were so far gone ..." He shakes his head.

Once again, he realizes he literally owes his life to Rhys, and knows he's forever indebted to him. He still doesn't know who he is, where he came from, or what's going to happen. What he does know is that, no matter what happens, he will find a way to repay him. "I owe you my life" he says softly.

Rhys stares at him, then sighs. "Don't thank me yet, Steve; we still need to get you home."

* * *

They've agreed to meet in Aberdeen, at the exact same spot where they transferred the guy abducted from Honolulu. There they can plan what to do next, discuss their options, find the best way to ensure they'll stay alive. If he sticks to the main roads he can be there in under eighteen hours.

Tommy sounded shit scared on the phone, terrified at the manner in which this seemingly simple operation has gone horribly wrong. "I don't get it, man! All we had to do was keep him alive, hold on to him until further notice. What the fuck went wrong?"

They only thing Archie can think of, the only reason why the Chinese have suddenly decided to change their plans, is the video Duck has posted. A video which might have given clues to the Five-0 team looking for their boss; a video which most likely incensed the Triad leader who had given the initial order for the abduction of the man, ordered to keep him healthy and alive.

As he gets on his bike, Archie's mind is busily going over all the options they have, all the possible scenarios which might play out. No matter which way he turns it, their options are few, and most scenarios end with him and Tommy encountering a fate similar to that of Duck and the other three guys. There's only one logical conclusion.

They have to get rid of the guy.


	11. Time's up

Guest reviewer "That Crazy Niko" pointed out a small but physically impossible mistake (Chin/Chen mix-up) which has now been corrected.  
Thank you ;-)

* * *

"There are no secrets that time does not reveal."

\- Jean Racine -

* * *

11\. TIME'S UP

He's been sleeping again, hours it seems, as he can tell the day has moved on without him. His dreams have been filled with images, faces that he still can't put a name to; the blue-eyed man appearing more often, frowning at him, arguing with him, flapping impatient hands at him.

Yet the image of the man conjures up nothing but warm feelings, as well as a deep-seated sadness for not being able to remember who he is. He sighs as he opens his eyes, then turns his head to find Rhys. He's not in the cabin.

Frowning, he listens for noises, a sign that Rhys is busy somewhere in one of the adjoining rooms. He hears nothing, doesn't hear the sound of wood being chopped outside either. There's just silence, and somehow it unnerves him.

Gathering what strength he can, he pushes himself up on one elbow, subconsciously noticing that the pain in his back seems less severe somehow. He rests for a moment, catching his breath, then puts his right hand on the mattress, pushing down, drawing up his left arm so he can place his left hand down as well.

His upper body is now raised off the mattress, and he hangs his head as an intense wave of vertigo and nausea passes through his body, desperately swallows to keep down his stomach contents. The level of weakness he experiences is something that is utterly frustrating.

Fueled by determination, by sheer willpower, he draws up one knee, then the other one. He's now on all fours, and he doesn't have a clue what to do next. Panting like an overheated dog, he is stuck on the mattress, groaning as he knows his own weight will soon cause him to collapse on his face.

He utters a short, barking laugh, realizing how ridiculous he must look. Then he slowly moves his right knee to the edge of the mattress, sliding it over until it goes off the edge and hits the wooden floor with a loud *thunk*, causing a flare of pain to shoot up his leg.

Things sort of speed up after that.

His leg going off the mattress causes him to lose what little balance he has; his right elbow gives way, making him fall face down and onto his right shoulder into the mattress. Instinctively he reaches up with his left arm, causing him to turn over and roll off the mattress, his head cracking against a small cabinet.

As black dots start swarming in front of his eyes, the back of his head suddenly feeling very warm, he feels a cold draft as the door to the cabin is opened, followed by somebody uttering a string of expletives.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing?!"

He opens his eyes, sees Rhys standing over him, glowering. He's still wearing his coat and boots, both covered with a liberal dusting of snow. Despite the pain in his knee and head, he gives him a goofy smile. "Take ... a walk."

Rhys shakes his head. "So the fact that you managed - barely managed, actually - to eat a bowl of porridge made you decide that today was a nice day for a stroll. Idiot; you're bleeding by the looks of it!"

He peeks at Rhys from between his eyelashes, feeling extremely stupid for having tried to get out of bed, yet somehow still seeing the humor of things. "You weren't there ... to hold my hand." He watches Rhys sigh, then take off his coat and boots.

"You're a pain in the ass, SEAL boy. Now let me get you back in bed and see what new injuries you have managed to add to your already impressive list."

Unceremoniously, Rhys pulls him up by the front of his shirt, not being able to stand behind him because of the way he has managed to wedge himself between the mattress, cabinet and wall. Then he goes to stand behind him, grabs him underneath his armpits and heaves him back on the mattress.

Putting his legs back as well, he continues to roll him over, making him feel slightly nauseous. He curtly nods at Rhys' "You OK?" and lets the other man administer to his needs. After Rhys has expertly cleaned and closed the gash he has managed to inflict on himself, he rolls him back and puts a stack of pillows behind him.

"So, what made you decide to get out of bed? Number two again?" Rhys throws him a wicked grin, meanwhile cleaning away the blood on the ground.

"Funny man." He sighs, definitely not amused by being reminded of what happened earlier that day. "You were gone. I wanted to check things out." Looking up, he throws Rhys a questioning glance. "Where were you?"

Rhys raises an eyebrow. "What, you're my mother? Do I have to tell you where I'm going every time?"

He frowns as a term suddenly pops up in his head. _Suspicious behavior._ Somehow, he knows he has used the term quite often, has heard it on an almost daily basis. Looking at Rhys, his mind tries to work out why.

"What are you thinking, Steve? Memory coming back?" Rhys throws him an inquisitive glance, his eyebrows raised even further.

He shakes his head. "Not sure. More ... terms I used." He pauses, frowns. "I think." Looking at Rhys, his lips go up in a little smile. "Suspicious. That's what I thought." Now it's Rhys' turn to frown.

"You thought it was suspicious that I wasn't there? Or that I don't tell you what I did?" He slightly tilts his head looking at the man in the bed.

"Both." He manages to wave his hand, dismissing the situation. "You're right. No need to know." _Classified_ his mind burps up, and he frowns again. If only his mind could come up with complete sentences, complete images. Complete _memories_.

"Seems to me like your memory really is coming back, even if it's in fits and starts."

Rhys looks at the man lying in bed; a man who, although currently very weak, obviously normally has an exceptionally fit condition, a man who seems to be used to being in control, to give orders. Rhys wonders if that is why he needed to be out of the way, wonders if that is the reason why this man is considered such a threat that somebody has gone to such lengths to hide him, subdue him.

He hopes to find the answer to those questions soon.

* * *

"Meet Archibald Bradley, or 'Archie' as his friends call him." Danny looks at the image Chin has put on one of the screens. The man is somewhere in his late thirties, early forties, powerfully built with short, dark hair and cool gray eyes.

Chin continues: "Closest friend of Donald "Duck" Stevenson, the biker that got shot in the alleyway. The SDPD went to question Archie regarding the shooting of his buddy and found he had pulled up stakes and disappeared that night. Neighbors reported a break-in in his apartment a few hours later, said they saw three Asian looking men jump in a car afterwards."

Danny frowns, taking in the information. "Three Asians again, I'm guessing that's the clean-up crew. Seems Archie knew he might be next on the list and decided to beat them to it. Good work, Chin." Chin nods. "This may be a long shot, but I may have more." He pulls up an old image of five young men in uniform. "Ow, blast from the past" comments Lou.

"These are members of a Marine Expeditionary Unit in Afghanistan." He points out the men one by one. "Michael Lawson, Donald Stevenson, Ernesto Gutiérrez and Archibald Bradley." Danny stares at the picture. "They all knew each other ... So who's the fifth guy?"

"That's where it may become interesting." Chin zooms in on the man standing in the middle. "This is Thomas Moore, dishonorably discharged for accepting payments in return for providing insurgents with sensitive information." Lou hisses between his teeth. "I bet the other boys didn't take too kindly to one of their own selling them out."

Chin nods again. "You're right, they didn't. Except Duck Stevenson and Archie Bradley. SDPD found Moore's number listed numerous times on Bradley's phone bill. And get this: Moore lives in Aberdeen." Danny stares at Chin. "Somehow I don't think you mean Aberdeen, Scotland." Chin shakes his head, pulling up a map.

"No, Aberdeen, Washington. Right on Route 101, and right underneath Olympic National Park."

* * *

Chen Zhi doesn't show his two companions that he's nervous, or more accurately, terrified. Having missed Bradley by mere hours could literally mean that his death warrant has been signed. He's not prepared to give up that easily though.

They have searched the house thoroughly, and one of his partners found something which might still tip the balance in his favor. There's a little notebook next to the phone, and somebody has written down a number using such force, the digits are still visible on the next piece of paper.

When they rub a pencil over the paper, the number becomes clearly visible. Using his phone, Chen goes to a so-called 'reverse phone look-up' site to track down the person whom it belongs to. When he finds out who and where he is, he smiles.

* * *

Kono frowns at the man behind the counter, smiling at her. "Mister Li, I don't understand. I asked if you knew when the new governor would be installed, if you might have heard anything about it." The man continues to smile, then nods. "Yes Miss, I understood the question, and I gave you an answer."

"Then I apologize for misunderstanding the answer, Mister Li." Kono bows to the man, who bows back to her. Just as she's about to turn around to leave, he winks at her and points at the calendar above the door. She looks up, then suddenly understands.

"Thank you, Mister Li." Kono bows at the man again, then exits the small shop.

* * *

Archie is so tired he can hardly see straight. He's been on his bike, on the _run_, for almost twelve hours straight. Leaving the I-5 at Weed, he has picked up Route 97, heading for Klamath Falls.

The call he placed several hours earlier was not really welcomed, but the service he required still available. They had agreed on a price, and a time when he would come by.

When he finally arrives at the house located just off Orchard Avenue, he's almost too tired to put the bike on the side-stand. One knock on the screen door is sufficient to bring out a scruffy looking guy with stringy, greasy hair and a cleft upper lip.

Archie is invited inside. He follows the scruffy guy through the kitchen, out through a door to the garage. When the merchandise is placed on the work bench, Archie suddenly gets a feeling that maybe things will turn out in his favor after all.

Putting down the agreed on cash amount, he places the cloth wrapped package inside his jacket.

* * *

His short-lived expedition off the mattress has left him with a sore kneecap and a slight headache, as well as all his muscles screaming from tension and long-forgotten use. They intermittently spasm and contract, sending short little twinges throughout his body.

Rhys has noticed his discomfort, and despite harassing him about the stupidity of it all he does relent, understanding the growing frustration of the man.

"How about I get you and your bed cleaned and then give you a massage to get your circulation stimulated? It will benefit your muscles as well. There's snow on the roof, so it's pretty warm in here for the moment."

Rhys expects to get into another argument again, but to his surprise all he gets is a nod, the man looking weary and exhausted. He has used up every bit of the little energy he had.

"That was easy. Maybe I should let you do this more often, you're far easier to work with like that." He grins, getting a small smile in return.

He lies there, eyes closed as Rhys quickly cleans both him and the bedding, then feels himself being rolled over on his back, a towel draped over him to keep him from becoming embarrassed, the pillows removed so he lies flat. Frowning, he senses Rhys just hovering over him.

"What?" Wondering if there's something wrong, he opens his eyes and catches Rhys staring at his chest, moving from one spot to another. Then the other man lifts his eyes up to meet his, and there's a look there that he just can't decipher.

"I'm not sure I should ask this, but maybe it will jog your memory." He stares straight at him. "I've noticed these scars on your chest before. Steve, do you know, do you _remember_ being tortured?" Rhys watches him intently, catching the exact moment when part of his memory slams back into him.

_There are chains again, but this time he's suspended from them while a voice, initially calm but increasingly angrier, keeps asking him the same question over and over again. A question he cannot hear now but apparently is important enough to beat him senseless, to make him scream in pain as electricity is guided through his body, to make him try and hold his breath, desperately needing air while his mouth, his throat and then his lungs fill with water._

The memory is so realistic that each punch causes his body to jerk, each electric shock makes his body jolt, and the water being poured over his mouth results in his lungs screaming for oxygen.

Then it suddenly fades, leaving him gasping for air as the illusion of water-filled lungs lasts the longest. Rhys is holding his shoulders, letting him go and just clasping his arm the minute he senses he's coming back down to reality, not wanting to aggravate the memory of being restrained.

"It's OK, you're safe, Steve. Breathe for me buddy. Whatever happened has passed, is over."

Rhys keeps a hand on his arm, watching the wide terrified eyes blink as his mind slowly emerge from whatever horrors he just experienced. And from what Rhys has seen and heard, those horrors included being beaten severely, being electrocuted and most likely being subjected to water-boarding.

And Steve survived it all.

It bears testimony to the incredible strength and will power of this man, something Rhys has witnessed already as he has seen him fight to stay alive. Again Rhys wonders who the man really is, convinced that he is more, much more than 'just' a SEAL.

"Sorry I did that to you, man. But I'm trying anything to get you to remember who you are."

He just lies there, trying to catch his breath, slowly calming down, shocked by the sheer intensity of the memory just flooding through him. Shocked by what had been done to him. "What ... what the fuck _was_ that?!" He stares at Rhys, almost as if blaming him for what he has just experienced.

"That probably was a memory, Steve. A pretty bad one, I think." Rhys has a bemused look in his eyes.

"Whoever you are, I think you are somebody to be afraid of." Rhys sees a frown appear, and immediately hastens to explain his last words. "I don't mean to say that you are a bad person, Steve. On the contrary. I think it's the bad guys who are afraid of _you_, judging from the extremes they're willing to go to."

He feels his heartbeat slowly steady down to a normal level, his breath evening out. Rhys' words somehow make sense, but still nothing clicks in his mind, nothing solid comes up to even offer the tiniest confirmation that Rhys is right.

When Rhys places his hand on his arm again, he flinches, instinctively drawing away, the fading memory still exerting some influence on his responses. "Sorry." He looks at Rhys, managing to throw him a small apologetic smile.

"Serious, man? You could've punched me in the face and I still would've understood." He flashes him a quick grin. "Not that you could've managed, but that's another story."

He smiles back. "Like I said, when I'm better." Other memories suddenly pop up, of running along a beach, working out hard. A small frown appears on his brow as he tries to grasp more details, but the memory is fleeting, dissipating quickly.

Rhys stares at him, noticing how his mind is working hard, fighting to catch more glimpses. "Give it time, Steve. It'll come." He gets up, looks down on him. "So how about this massage?"

He nods.

* * *

"What was the cryptic message this mister Li gave you, Kono?" Chin looks at his cousin, amazed at how she's been able to extract information from the Chinese community yet again. Kono smiles. "Trust me, Cuz; at first I didn't get it either. I had to do some research on the computer before figuring it out."

"_The governor will come when we thank our ancestors in the extreme of winter."_

It had meant nothing to Kono, until Li had nodded at the calendar. Then she understood that the man had made a reference to some type of Chinese holiday, and after some time behind the computer she had found the _Dongzhi Festival_.

"That reference to winter really had me thrown for a loop. I mean, come on; winter in Hawaii?" Chin just stares as her, then nods. "Not bad for a rookie, Kono. Before you know it, you'll be almost as good as us. Almost." It earns him a hefty thump on the shoulder.

Lou is slightly distracted by Danny's voice coming from his office, obviously arguing with somebody on the phone. He shrugs, then looks at the information Chin has called up on the screen. "So this Dongz or whatever they call it, what date is that?"

"It's the Winter Solstice, so the twenty-first or twenty-second of December." Kono looks at Lou, then back at the screen. Chin frowns. "Which means that, if that's the date they 'expect' the new governor to be installed, the Governor must be assassinated just before then."

Lou leans on the PC table, looks at the screen, then at Chin, frustrated. "That gives us less than a week, possibly just a few days. And we still have _no_ hard evidence to move on!"

Just then Danny comes walking out of his office, looking angry and anxious. Another conversation with the SDPD has deprived him of what little self-control he has left by now. "Those _assholes_! Hand them information on a silver platter and they´ll gleefully throw it back in your face. _Dammit_!"

Chin and Kono simply stare at Danny's outburst. He's been having them more frequently these past few days; not knowing where Steve is has severely undermined his mental composure.

Lou lifts an eyebrow, then scrapes his throat. "I take it your request to interview Thomas Moore was declined." Danny throws him an angry look. "Yes. By now I think I've heard every possible synonym for the word 'assumption' come by. How come they have the same information as we do, but still refuse to draw the same conclusions?!"

"That's simple, Danny." Chin's eyes have a gentle, almost compassionate look in them. "Our drive to find Steve is stronger. After all, he's ohana." Danny stares at him, then looks down, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Yeah, that's right. He's ohana."

He's torn in two internally by the war between duty and loyalty, obligation and devotion.

Instinctively, he wants to pack a bag, board a plane and head out to Aberdeen, talk to this Moore guy himself, use every means, every _method _to persuade him to give up Steve's location. But they're Five-0, the Governor's Task Force, and the oath he's sworn includes protecting the Governor. And now that he's in charge of the team, he cannot simply dismiss his duty.

Unless that duty interferes with trying to save his friend's life.

* * *

John Yun looks at the screen of the laptop. Two more days and his plan will come to fruition; then the Triad will have control over Honolulu.

The preparations to take out the Governor have been set in motion, and with Five-0 still desperately looking for their Commander, security details around the Governor have been less tight than usual.

Now all that needs to be done is removing the trail to and on the mainland. And Yun is convinced he has give Chen Zhi enough incentive to make sure that it is done correctly.

Smiling, he closes the laptop.


	12. Collision Course

"Death and I are head to head in a total collision, pure and mutual distaste."

\- Harold Brodkey -

* * *

12\. COLLISION COURSE

A soft knock sounds on the door of the house situated on a small street just off Aberdeen Avenue. The squarely built man with the blond curls looks up, then grabs the .44 Magnum lying on the table, flipping off the safety.

Quietly, he walks towards one of the windows overlooking the porch, then carefully draws back a portion of the heavy curtain. He sighs when he sees the man standing on the porch, then puts the safety back on the weapon. When he opens the door, the visitor slips in.

"Hey Tommy." Archie looks at his long time friend, notices the gun in his hand. Tommy follows his friend's gaze, frowns. "Precaution. That phone call of yours wasn't exactly comforting." He walks over to the kitchen, then pulls two beers out of the fridge.

Archie holds up a hand, shaking his head. "No man, I'm good. I prefer to keep my wits about me." Looking at the beers, Tommy sighs, then walks back to the fridge to replace them. "You're right." He comes back to sit on the couch, then throws Archie a long and hard stare. "So ... what's the plan? Why did you want to meet here instead of the place we agreed on?"

Archie's gray eyes scrutinize him, then he sighs, running a hand through his short, dark hair. "That transfer place still had too many risks in my opinion, too many opportunities for those Chinamen to take us out. I looked at every possible scenario, Tommy; all of them end badly for us."

The blond man is silent for a moment, then he nods. "Guess there's only one thing to do then."

Archie frowns. "We should've never gotten involved in this. Duck made it sound too easy." Tommy nods. "It would've been simple if all I had to do was keep him chained up and locked inside the cabin." He grunts. "Hell, we had plenty of practice with those fuckers back in Afghanistan." Looking up, he throws Archie an inquisitive look. "How the hell did that dude get so sick, anyway?"

Rubbing his chin, Archie grunts. "That was Duck, man. He decided to inject the guy with double doses of that sedative when we moved him up here, just to make sure he didn't make a sound." He sighs. "Guess the ride in the truck didn't do him any good either. He was still dressed for Hawaii, and Duck said one blanket was enough, that the guy supposedly was a tough fucker."

Tommy shakes his head. "When you called to say he was in really bad shape, all I could think was how pissed off that Triad boss would be if he died. That's why I called in Rhys." Archie stares at him. "How do you think Rhys is gonna react?" Tommy rubs his forehead. "To tell you the truth, I don't think he'll like it. And you've seen Rhys; he's a force to be reckoned with."

Archie looks down, gray cells in overdrive. He's not looking forward to having to fight a six foot two pissed off Marine. If push comes to shove ... he knows Rhys is Tommy's cousin, but if need be, he'll put him down, just like he'll do with the guy from Hawaii.

When he looks up again, he sees Tommy staring at him, and knows he's is on to him. "No Archie, no fucking way; that ain't gonna happen. Rhys is family, I won't let you shoot him." Archie nods. "OK. You come up with an alternative then. As long as it's feasible, I'll go along with it."

_And I'll fucking shoot you both if I have to_ he mentally adds.

Tommy looks at him, nods. Then he pulls a map from a drawer in the coffee table; it shows the Olympic Wilderness just North of them, with an X marking a spot a mile off National Forest Development Road 2473. It's the location of the cabin where the Hawaiian hostage is at.

Archie is looking at the map, listening to Tommy explain how it will take them less than two hours to get there. Next, Tommy gets up, taking a satellite phone off the top of the fridge. "What are you doing, Tommy?" Archie raises his eyebrows.

"I'm calling Rhys. Cell phone coverage is like shit over there, so Rhys came up with this. I need to tell him we're coming, Archie." He starts dialing and then glances over at his friend, freezing as he sees Archie pull a large semi-automatic from his jacket.

"Put the phone down, Tommy."

Unbelieving, the blond man looks at the gun pointed at him, then up at the face of his friend. Or, the man he _thought_ was his friend. There's a cold, calculating look in Archie's eyes that Tommy doesn't like for one bit. "What the _fuck_ ! You gone mad?!"

Archie stares at him, the gun unwavering in his hand. "You're not gonna call anybody, Tommy. As a matter of fact, you're not coming along to the cabin, either. You're too fucking soft about this cousin of yours, and I just don't want to run the risk of things still going tits up because of that."

He motions to the basement door with the gun. "Get in there, Tommy." He watches a bewildered look cross over the face of the man, then Tommy's eyes suddenly turn dark with rage. "_Fuck_ you! I'll be damned if I'm gonna let you go after Rhys and kill him!"

Tommy ducks, feeling a bullet whiz over his head, then lunges forward and grabs Archie by the legs, bringing him down. It's a fierce struggle between the two former Marines, their instinct calling up the intense training both of them enjoyed years ago.

For a moment it looks as if Tommy gains the upper hand, but Archie uses all his strength and manages to tilt the barrel until it points away from him, then jams it underneath the other man's chin. "Sorry Tommy" he says, as he pulls the trigger. His friend slumps over him.

Archie scrambles up, takes one look at the dead man on the floor, shakes his head, then grabs a dish cloth to remove the blood spatter from his face and jacket. Next, he picks up the map from the table, takes the satellite phone, stuffs both of them in his jacket, pockets the gun and heads out the back door.

He needs to get out of there. Fast.

* * *

"Guys, a little birdie just whispered something to me which we need to look into, I think." Kono puts down her phone, then glances at Danny; he's leaning against the outer wall of Steve's office, his face haggard and drawn. He's been doing that a lot lately, as if touching something connected to Steve will keep him grounded, will keep him linked to the man that has been torn from his life.

Chin looks at her. "Spill, cuz." Kono walks over to the conference table, sits down. "Well, you know Vans Triple Crown event, right?" Chin nods, but both Lou and Danny give her a blank stare. She sighs. "It's a three part surfing event with the world's top wave riders competing for Pipeline World Championship as well as overall series winner. It started in October."

Danny peels himself off the wall, slowly walks towards the table where Kono and Lou are sitting. "How would an event where people battle for the honor to be scraped into a bloody pulp by coral or have their limbs broken by being wiped out by waves - no offense, Kono - bear any meaning on what we're trying to solve here?"

Kono flashes him a little smile. "No problem, bossman." She watches a painful look appear and then as quickly disappear on Danny's face. The term hurts, driving home the absence of Steve. Glancing down to cover her embarrassment, Kono continues.

"One of the competitors is Bill Matheson. He is good, _very_ good actually. It's highly likely he'll end up being one of the top three finalists." She watches Chin frown and quickly continues. "What's very interesting is that Matheson also happens to be the Governor's cousin; his mother is a Denning. Rumor within the surfers community has it the Governor will be present to watch the finals."

Chin rapidly starts typing, then puts up the details of the Vans Triple Crown event on one of the screens. "Finals are on the 20th, which means this Saturday." Danny frowns. "As far as I know we haven't received any request for back-up, to beef up security for the Governor on that date." He looks at Chin. "Any hints in that direction from the HPD?" Chin shakes his head.

"So, the Chinese community thinks there will be a new governor installed during the Winter Solstice, which is on the 21st, and the present governor is said to attend a _very_ public event the day before, without requesting high detail security." Lou looks at Danny, who rubs a hand over his face. "Sounds like a perfect opportunity for a hit, if you ask me." Danny nods.

_Steve_ he thinks, his insides clenching up. _Steve, I'm sorry, I have to do this. Please hang on!_

* * *

The black car pulls up to the house sometime before midnight. It's headlights are turned off, and the three men quickly and quietly get out and move up to the front door. They peer through the windows, then one of them moves to the front door. It's unlocked.

What they find inside takes them by surprise. One of the men kneels down next to the body, then looks up at Chen Zhi. "Been dead for several hours." Chen frowns, wondering what happened. All he can think is that the two men they're after disagreed on something. "Check the house. Thoroughly. We need to find something which will point to the place they're holding McGarrett."

After searching for over an hour, one of the men comes out of the bedroom with a framed picture. It's an old photograph of a newly built cabin, two grinning men in front of it, holding tools and axes. Chen takes the picture, turns it over. _Our cabin, built with our own hands. So proud!_ The other man shows him that he has removed the back cover, and Chen takes out the photograph.

Glued to the back is a piece of an old, faded map.

* * *

It's still early evening, but Danny has fallen into bed, exhausted, the minute he came home from HQ. Today was the third time someone was talking to him and discovered he was asleep on his feet, eyes open; the lights on but nobody home. These last few days he's only been able to keep going by sheer force of will, pure Jersey stubbornness.

His gut, his heart tell him to run to the mainland, start following the trail of what the SDPD has called _assumptions_ in order to track down Steve. Unfortunately, his contract and duty demand him to stay on the island. It's a heavy war being waged inside of him, and it's killing him, keeping him wide awake for most of his nights. This time he's taken a sleeping pill, hoping it will send him into sleep, into oblivion.

After thirty minutes his eyelids fall shut. An hour later, the nightmare starts.

_The red dot creeps up the Governor's back, moving slowly towards his head. He's too far away and yells, tries to draw attention, but the shouts of the enthusiastic crowd watching the surfers perform their mind-blowing wave stunts drowns him out._

_A flash appears out of the corner of his eye, a flash which moments later materializes into a running, grim looking Steve, his face a picture of total concentration, eyes locked on the Governor. He threads through the crowd like a sinuous predator, long legs covering the ground with breathtaking speed._

_Just before the red dot reaches the man's head, Steve is there, launching himself against the Governor, pushing him out of the way just as a shot rings out._

_Danny's breath locks in his throat as he runs towards them, watches as the crowd scatters at the sound of the shot, leaving two figures. After a few moments, one of the figures slowly gets up, then leans over the other one, still on the ground. When he finally gets there, the Governor looks up, tears in his eyes._

"_He saved me, Danny."_

_Falling to his knees, his breath stuttering in his chest, Danny runs his hands over the still form, face down, arms and legs splayed out wide. There's blood pooling underneath Steve's head, slowly leaking into the sand. His eyes are staring, his mouth wide open, air rasping in and out._

_The bloodied lips are moving, as if trying to say something. As Danny leans his face close to him, shocked, terrified, whispering incoherent words, the eyes slowly focus on his. Danny leans in closer, tears running down his face, trying to understand what he's trying to say._

"_You said you'd come for me, Danno. You promised." Then the eyes glaze over._

Screaming, Danny bolts upright in bed.

* * *

There's a satisfied look on John Yun's face as he gently replaces the receiver on the telephone. Chen Zhi has provided him with very good news; they have found the location where Five-0's Commander is being held. Chen and his men will sleep a few hours, wait until it's light again before moving in. They want to make absolutely sure all odds are in their favor.

The rest of Yun's plan is also right on track. Tomorrow he will talk to the man who will carry out the most import part of it, make sure he understands that failure in this case is not only not an option, but will result in severe repercussions to both the man himself and his family.

Yun rules with an iron hand, always making good on his promises. Those who follow his orders and execute them according to his wishes are ensured of his protection. Those who fail usually end up wishing they have never heard of him.

He sits back, swirling the deep yellow cognac in the glass he's holding. One more day. One more day is all that will elevate him from being just another Hong Kong Triad leader to being _the_ Triad boss here on Oahu, possibly even in all of Hawaii. He smiles.

_He who has the last laugh, wins the final victory._

* * *

Danny has given up on sleep for this night. He sits on the couch, slowly sipping the warm coffee, trying to drive the nightmare's images from his mind. Those words coming from Steve's bloodied mouth, the soft and anguished recrimination just before his eyes had become soulless ...

"_You said you'd come for me, Danno. You promised."_

Shaking his head, he feels a lone tear slip down his cheek. He can't do this anymore, knows he has stopped functioning, stopped being a useful part of the team. Every waking minute, and there are too many of those within the last twenty-four hour periods, all he can think about is Steve. All he sees is Steve.

Looking at his gun and badge on the table, he feels a deep sadness for what he has lost. He wonders what it will feel like, when he pulls the trigger, his lips around the cold metal of his weapon. Wonders if there will be a last frightened doubt, knowing then it will be too late as the bullet speeds towards his brain stem.

Wonders if the last thought will be of Steve.

Putting down his coffee, his hand slides towards the gun, trembling. He imagines the shocked looks on the faces of his team members when they find him, splayed against the back of the couch, dressed in nothing but his boxers, his brains all over the place.

_Still waiting for you to come get me._

The words slam into his head with such force that he reels back, snatches his hand away from the gun as if he has been burned. Steve is waiting. His buddy is out there, waiting for him to come and get him. Waiting, and instead of his partner, his _friend_ coming to his rescue, Detective Daniel Williams is on the verge of eating his own gun.

Hanging his head, he starts sobbing, crying with grief, with _shame_ because of what he has been reduced to. After a few minutes, he runs his hands over his face, wipes them on his boxers. He has no other option left but to do what needs to be done.

Grabbing his phone, he searches on the Internet and manages to book a canceled seat on a flight from Honolulu to LAX, then books another flight from Los Angeles to Seattle. Next, he rents a car at Seattle Airport.

After confirming and paying everything on-line by credit card, he grabs a carry-on bag from the top of a cupboard and stuffs some clothes into it. Next, he grabs a set of clean clothes, then heads towards the shower. He scrubs himself, _hard_, as if to remove the shame he felt earlier, tries to scrape off that part of him which had him cowering towards his weapon.

When he's dressed, he checks if he has everything; not that he needs much. His looks at his gun and badge, still on the table. Taking the weapon with him will just take too much procedural time, as he can't carry it on-board with him. His fingers stroke over the logo on the badge, halting over the word _Investigator._ Then he pulls back his hand; he doesn't deserve it anymore, and he's pretty sure he won't be allowed to wear it after what he's about to do.

He's going to find Steve.

* * *

The freezing cold inside the cabin has woken Rhys long before he normally does. Temperatures have dropped significantly towards the end of the night, and the skies have dumped another load of snow on the landscape.

It is hours before it will be light, but Rhys is already dressed, sitting on the couch, leaning forward to add more wood to the ravenous black stove. Instead of porridge, he has set a pot of beef stew to cook on the stove top, planning on waking Steve when it's ready. The man can do with some good, solid food to get his system further on track.

The sudden cold draft and snow blowing in cause Rhys to turn around, and he stares at the man who just entered the cabin, dumbstruck. "What the hell! Archie? What the fuck are you doing here?!"

There's barely time to react as Archie, face grim and determined, covered in snow and displaying a semi-automatic weapon in his right hand, scans the room and then takes three long strides along the back of the couch, aiming the weapon at Steve.

Rhys clears the couch in one adrenaline fueled leap, ramming into Archie's side just as he pulls the trigger.

Time suddenly shifts down a gear into slow motion. As he rolls away from Archie, he hears the grunt of pain coming from the mattress; turning his head, he watches in horror as Steve, who has been jolted awake by the sound of Rhys' voice and has managed to raise himself up on one elbow, slumps back against the pillow, blood running down the side of his head.

Rhys is back on his feet in a flash, but Archie has recovered from the sudden attack; he points the weapon straight at him, and the men glare at each other like angry predators, ready to pounce. "That was a dumb fucking move, Rhys" Archie hisses between his teeth, massaging his shoulder with his left hand.

"What the hell are you doing, Archie?" Rhys tries to sound relaxed, almost nonchalant when he asks the question, but he's coiled tighter than a rattler about to strike. Never taking his eyes of the weapon aimed at his chest, he slowly moves himself between Archie and the mattress.

Archie gives him a deadpan look. "Cleaning up this mess. It's the only way I might make it out of this situation alive." Rhys keeps his eyes on the man, ready for anything, trying to divert Archie from his obviously single minded purpose.

"Where's Tommy?" Archie frowns, then sighs. "Sorry man, he didn't make it. We got into a fight at his place, and I had to shoot him." He sounds anything but remorseful as he moves the weapon up to Rhys' head. "And stop moving, asshole. I'm usually not very violently inclined, but I don't have any problems blowing your fucking head off as well."

Rhys looks back over his shoulder, both to hide the sudden rage coursing through his body and to check on the still form on the mattress. He can't see where the bullet has hit Steve, but he's worried about the amount of blood and the fact that Steve hasn't moved since being shot.

"Now, if you'll be so kind as to move out of the way, I can finish what I started." The words make Rhys turn back to Archie, and he moves again so he still blocks his line of sight. Looking at him, he slowly shakes his head. "I can't let you do that. The guy's no threat to you."

Archie grunts, then laughs. "The hell he isn't! That fucker obviously has become a liability, and the reason why those Chinamen are after me." He narrows his eyes. "They're taking out _everybody_ who has been involved, trying to find out where he is."

Trying to stall for time, to keep Archie from shooting both him and Steve, Rhys raises his eyebrows. "What do you mean, they're taking out everybody?"

Archie shoots him a cold stare. "I mean the Chinamen are running a clean-up detail. So far they've taken out six people, all of them connected with transporting that guy." He nods at Steve, who's lying pale and still against the pillows. "And you better realize you're on the hit list as well. If I don't shoot you, they sure as fuck will."

Rhys suddenly decides to change his game play; he frowns, then turns and stares at Steve again. "Never thought that would happen. It sure changes things." He turns back to Archie. "So what are your plans after you kill him? You, or more accurately, _we_ will still be on the list, right?" He scrutinizes the man in front of him, sees him mull over his question.

"Dunno, disappear I guess. I got plenty of contacts that can help me do so." He stares at Rhys with a calculating look. "If you're not gonna work against me in this, I could help you set up a new identity as well. Pretty sure you'd be able to start a new life somewhere no problem, with all those medical skills you have. We might even team up, watch each other's back, you know."

Rhys fully turns now, looking down at the man on the mattress, taking a few steps closer. "Yeah, those skills have been fucking wasted on this guy though, if you're gonna kill him anyway." He quickly takes in the fact that Steve's still breathing, slow but evenly. He can actually see the track the bullet left along the side of his head, just above his ear. His right shirt sleeve is bloody as well, and he vaguely remembers Steve making a warding-off motion just before getting shot.

Suddenly he realizes Steve is conscious, peering at him from between his eyelashes; he can see the light reflecting off his eyes. Rhys gives him a small, barely noticeable wink with his right eye, and he sees the eyes close.

Turning back to Archie, he sighs. "It's a bitch that all this baby-sitting has been for nothing, but I prefer to keep breathing. OK, whatever you're gonna do, do it quickly." Archie, relieved he doesn't have to fight the big man standing in front of him, takes two steps towards the mattress, then aims the weapon.

Two things happen.

Rhys' slams his right hand, palm outward, into Archie's elbow, while his left fist simultaneously packs a powerful wallop against his ear. And while losing his balance, Archie's left leg encounters two other legs, still covered in blankets, being lifted sideways off the mattress. He goes down.

Archie lets out a yell of surprise, but the guy is a quick thinker, immediately understanding the situation. His right leg snaps out, catching Rhys just inside the left knee, quickly followed by his left foot kicking Rhys in the right ankle. Twisting over, he starts scrambling for the weapon on the floor.

Falling, Rhys moves so he slams down into Archie's upper body, feeling the breath huff out of him. His arms reach up to lock his hands on Archie's wrists, just as he has gotten hold of the gun. They each strain to gain the upper hand, Archie's elbow painfully connecting with Rhys' cheekbone.

Archie starts bringing down his arms, grinning at Rhys as he bends his elbows and positions the weapon between them, nudged between their chests. Rhys' hands fumble with the gun, desperate to remove the pressure the barrel exerts on his upper stomach, to deviate certain death as his fingers try to dislodge Archie's from the trigger.

A shot rings out.

* * *

Light has barely begun to light the sky when the black car leaves Aberdeen. It will take them just under an hour to reach the turn-off for North Shore Road, leading them into the Olympic Wilderness. Considering the road conditions, and barring any problems, it will take another thirty to forty-five minutes to reach the small track in the woods running to the cabin.

The three men are rested, fit, and hot on the trail. Soon they will accomplish their objective; get rid of the last piece of evidence. Get rid of Five-0's Commander.

John Yun will be pleased.


	13. Escape

LadyNiko kindly pointed out that my word processor (read: brain, or what passes for it) had gone on the blitz regarding IPC/ICP, an abbreviation you will get to know in this chapter. So I unblitzed it and corrected the errors. Much obliged ;-)

* * *

"Nobody ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of his choices."

\- Alfred A. Montapert -

* * *

13\. ESCAPE

Daniel Williams is like an insignificant planet, a tiny satellite traveling along an infinite lemniscate through space and time, orbiting two suns. He can barely remember the time when it used to be just one, his orbit a tight, protective and never-ending circle; or the time before that, when the second sun was another sphere, giving off a steady but far less brighter light.

There's no denying anymore that Steve has become just as important as Grace, although on a different level. Where his daughter is his very reason for being, his _raison d'être_ so to speak, Steve has become the air he needs to breathe to stay alive. Without air he simply ceases to be, turning this flight away from Honolulu and duty and towards the unknown and - hopefully! - Steve, into nothing less than a simple act of self-preservation.

The moment he made the decision to go was the moment all doubt fell away, as if he had shed a cumbersome, down-dragging body armor. Although he has no idea what he'll find, if anything at all, he hasn't felt this calm in weeks.

Staring at the clouds passing underneath him, he is on his way to embrace his fate.

* * *

The sound of the shot within the cabin was deafening, rolling off the walls.

Dazed, both by the ringing in his ears as well as that final and desperate struggle to stay alive, fighting for control of the gun, one of the two men previously engaged in a fierce battle slowly struggles to his knees. Looking down at the figure beneath him, blood pooling underneath the still body, he manages to push himself up onto legs that feel like cotton. When he is certain that his limbs will not betray him, he slowly turns around, focusing on the man on the mattress, his gaze narrowing in concentration.

Two anxious eyes, wide with fear, with shock, meet his own. The blood which has run down the gaunt, hollow face has slowed from a steady stream into a trickle, trailing a path along the cheekbone before disappearing into the neck of the undershirt. The voice, when it comes, sounds hoarse, hesitant and unsteady.

"Rhys?"

There is a moment where he cannot find enough breath to answer, where his first step almost causes him to stumble, exhausted by the intense rush of adrenaline. Managing to make his way towards the cabin door, still open, he slams it shut to cut off the flurry of snow entering the cabin, causing the inside temperatures to drop far beneath what is comfortable.

Then he turns, inhaling the frigid air hanging by the door, his breath pluming as he speaks. "I'm OK. Shit. This is _not_ how I like to start my day!" He groans as his sore muscles cramp up in agreement. The joke-not-joke serves to break through the paralyzing effects following a fight-or-flight reaction, and after he takes another few steps, Rhys almost falls to his knees next to the mattress. He takes Steve's face in his hands.

"Let me look at this."

Rhys frowns as he gently turns the head and examines the deep crease the bullet has gouged just above Steve's right temple. "This needs cleaning and stitching." Quickly looking down at Steve's bloody right arm, Rhys sighs. "He really got you, didn't he?" Letting the head gently fall back onto the pillow, he carefully pulls back the drenched sleeve, then feels relief as he sees the bullet has only grazed Steve's arm. The wound has almost stopped bleeding.

"That could've been a lot worse, I guess." Scrutinizing the pale face, Rhys looks for the tell-tale signs of a possible brain injury, relieved to see both pupils are equal sized, the eyes slightly dazed but coordinated and tracking his every move. "How are you feeling?"

Staring back into Rhys' gentle green eyes, seeing the worried look, he lets out a deep sigh. "M'kay. Head hurts." He tries to touch the painful wound on his skull, then flinches as a flash of pain shoots through his arm. Managing a small, rueful smile he lets the arm drop down again, regretting it instantly as another wave of pain causes him to hiss.

Getting up, Rhys quickly gathers first aid material from the small cupboard, puts it in a small bowl and then comes to sit back next to the mattress again. Snapping on a pair of rubber gloves, he fills a syringe with fluid from a small bottle. "Local anesthesia. I always hate it when big tough SEALs start blubbering for their Mommy."

Winking at Steve, amused by the responding grunt to his joke, he quickly numbs the area, then thoroughly cleans it before deftly putting in four stitches. "Not my prettiest work, but it'll have to do." He places clean gauze over the wound, then secures it with a small roll of bandage.

"I'll need to find you another hat. This one has died I think." Rhys puts a finger through the hole in the hat, surprised at the sudden shiver running down his back as he looks at the blood which has soaked into the wool. This morning could have ended far worse for the both of them.

Steeling himself, Rhys cleans the wound on Steve's arm, then bandages it as well. When he looks up, he sees Steve staring, becoming instantly worried that he might have misjudged the extent of Steve's injuries. Then he follows Steve's gaze and sees Archie's body near the foot of the mattress. For a moment Rhys is lost in thought, feeling a deep anger suddenly burn through him at the realization that Tommy is _dead_, killed by what supposedly was a long time friend.

Watching Rhys suddenly frown in anger, he places a hand on his arm, feeling the muscles tense up. "You saved me. _Again_." He feels the muscles tense even further for a second, then relax. The green eyes slowly shift to focus on him, the angry look replaced with something akin to wonder.

"I honestly thought I hadn't." Rhys swallows, surprised at the lump in his throat, the sudden emotion rising up. "I really thought for a moment that Archie not only killed Tommy but you as well. That ... that hurt." Shutting his eyes for a moment, Rhys tries to block out the memory of the rush of despair flooding through him as he watched Steve flop back into the pillows, blood streaming from his head.

In less than two weeks, Rhys has developed a deep, emotional bond with the man he has been caring for, a bond so strong it resembles the one forged between men who go to war together, who have each other's backs while waging battles. And he suddenly realizes that it's no different; that they have, in fact, actively fought together, waged a war together.

A battle to keep Steve alive.

He completely gets the emotions he sees flashing over Rhys' features. Again, the understanding does not stem from a memory but from much deeper down, rising from something that is an integral part of his being. "Buddies." Smiling, he keeps his hand on Rhys' arm, the touch saying more than words can, conveying not only understanding, but deeply felt gratitude.

Rhys pats his hand, then suddenly his face turns serious. "We do have a major problem. I don't know how much you managed to understand, but Archie said there's a clean-up team after everybody involved with your abduction." Rhys swallows, then continues: "And they're after you as well."

Foreboding, a deep sense of dread, suffuses him. He may have gained some energy, a semblance of control over his muscles, but he's far from being able to walk, to run. To _fight._ Still completely dependent on Rhys' help, he will do nothing but hinder any effort of trying to escape the coming threat. Resignation is quick to follow, as he instinctively understands that there's only one way out of the situation.

"You have to go, Rhys. Get out of here." He sees the surprise in the green eyes, then a dawning understanding. As Rhys starts to protest, he manages to hold up a hand, stop him in his tracks. "I'm no good to you, I'll only slow you down. Nobody expects you to give up your life for me." Again, Rhys opens his mouth, but he quickly continues. "Leave me here. It's me they want, I'm their real target. If I'm ... if they get _me _they'll stop looking for you. Just get out, go _now_!"

Rhys falls back on his haunches, staring at Steve, who has a calm but intent look in his eyes. More than ever he sees the enormous strength of character, now combined with an obvious inbuilt instinct to protect those he cares about, the willingness to sacrifice himself in order to safeguard others.

'_Somebody out there must miss this guy so very much'_ Rhys thinks. _'They must be going crazy with worry, with grief; not knowing where he is.'_

Smiling, feeling a surprising moistness prickling behind his eyes, Rhys grabs one of Steve's hands, a hand that grips back, hinting at its normal strength. The eyes staring into his still have that intent look, now coupled with a calm resignation. Blowing out a trembling breath, Rhys leans forward, putting his other hand on Steve's shoulder.

"If you think I'm leaving you behind, that fucking bullet caused more damage than I thought."

* * *

One of the last things Danny did after booking his flight to Los Angeles was call Sam Hanna, the ex-SEAL from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. He needed to by-pass customs and luggage check in order to make his connecting flight to Seattle, and asked Sam to contact LAX airport security to arrange it for him.

Used to covert OPS and missions, all Danny needed to tell Sam was that it involved Steve. Sam, of course, knew about Steve's abduction, knew how frustrated Five-0 and Danny in particular was about the lack of action, the insufficient evidence to act. Although definitely not by the book, following standard operational procedure, Sam agreed to help Danny out in this case. After all, it was about a SEAL reservist, making NCIS involvement fairly logical. What's more, it concerned Steve.

When Danny arrives at LAX, he's the first passenger allowed off the plane. Sam is waiting in the jet bridge, flanked by an airport security officer who immediately takes his carry-on bag. With minutes to spare they rush to the departure gate, fortunately located in the same terminal.

"Does your team even know where you're going, Danny?" Sam throws his a quick, inquiring look. Danny's blank face says it all. "OK, covert it is then. What do I tell Hetty if, I mean, _when_ she finds out?" Danny shoots him a small, wan smile. "Tell her she needn't bother calling the Governor. After this, he probably won't _be_ my boss anymore."

He doesn't mention the fact that it's completely uncertain whether the Governor will even still be alive by then. However, that is out of his hands now, something the rest of the team will have to deal with. His duty lies elsewhere.

Both Sam and the security officer run along him to the other gate, right up to the airplane's door, where Danny is handed his bag again. Turning, Danny gives Sam a quick hug, slightly embarrassing him. "Thanks, Sam." The other man nods. "I should be thanking you, Danny. You're the one going after Steve." They exchange a short, intense look. An impatient cough from the stewardess sets Danny in motion.

Suddenly Sam calls out. "Hey Danny?" Turning around, Danny quickly peeks around the closing door.

"Make sure you find him. Bring him home!"

* * *

"Rhys, you _have_ to leave me here!" He watches as Rhys continues to gather all sorts of equipment, stuffing it into a medium sized combat back-pack. A dull ache has settled in his head, making him squint against the light of the battery powered lamps. "C'mon on, man. You know I'm right!" Rhys ignores him as he checks out a combat medic kit, removes and adds a few things, then packs it away.

"Rhys!"

Turning around, Rhys frowns at Steve. "You of all people should be familiar with the concept of leaving no man behind. I'm a medic, there just ain't no way I'm doing this." He watches as Steve slumps back against the pillows. He has been fervently pleading his case, trying to make Rhys understand. It has exhausted him.

"You'd better save your energy for what's to come" Rhys says, meanwhile making two tight rolls consisting of Mylar blankets, sleeping bags and bivvy bags. He secures the rolls on the front of the back-pack. Stopping for a moment to contemplate his inventory, he nods, satisfied with the pack's contents. It has taken him less than twenty minutes to pack it.

Next, he takes a semi-automatic off the shelf above the wood stove, as well as a few ammunition clips. Walking over to Archie's body he picks the gun off the floor, then quickly searches the dead man's clothing. Grunting with satisfaction he relieves him of two clips, both full. He places both weapons and ammunition on the table, then walks over to Steve.

"OK, now I'm going to sit you up, and then you're going to eat the stew I made earlier on. God knows when we'll get another chance to eat a decent meal." Steve is about to say something, but Rhys cuts him off with an irritated gesture. "Enough with this bullshit about leaving you behind. Focus on what's going to happen, instead of on what's _not_ going to happen."

He pulls Steve up in a sitting position, careful to avoid the injury on his arm, then walks over to the stove, fills a bowl with the stew and comes back. "I'm going to feed you; we don't have the time for you to do it yourself." Before Steve has a chance to say anything, he scoops up a spoon full and holds it against his lips.

There's no reasoning with Rhys. He gives him a baleful stare as he opens his mouth to accept the stew, then closes his eyes as his taste-buds savor the flavor. "Good" he mumbles. It takes less than ten minutes to finish off the contents of the bowl, and he sinks back into the pillows closing his eyes, tired and full.

"I'm giving you ten, at the most fifteen minutes to rest, then you need to determine whether you need to do a number one or both." Rhys's voice sounds determined, an urgent edge to it. "After that, we gotta go."

Opening his eyes, he glares at the man still hovering above him. "You're nuts, you know that?" He watches a quick smile appear on Rhys' face, confirming his awareness of the fact. "How the fuck do you intend to take me along; drag me by my ankles? It's never gonna work, and you're taking unacceptable risks in doing this; you're compromising your escape!"

Rhys' eyebrows go up at the commanding, steely tone in Steve's voice. _'No, definitely not just a SEAL'_ he thinks. Suddenly he grins. "You're still in no condition to do anything about it, so your opinion doesn't mean squat right now." He sees an angry look appear on the man's face, as he knows full well that he can, indeed, do nothing about it.

Getting up, Rhys walks towards the bedroom and goes in, only to return moments later with a stack of clothes. He places them on the couch near the wood stove, adds some more wood, then places the back-pack on the table. Stuffing the extra ammo inside, he secures all the straps, making sure everything is in place. Then he walks back to the mattress.

"OK, so what's your pleasure; just number one or both. It's time to get you dressed and get a move on."

It takes just a few minutes for Steve to relieve himself and then clean him up; Rhys gets the clothes from the couch and with deft hands, careful not to jostle Steve's injuries too much, he quickly takes off his bloody undershirt, then puts a new layer of thick, woolen underwear on him. Woolen socks follow, then Rhys dresses him in a fleece, zippered overall and vest, adding a second pair of woolen socks.

He looks on as Rhys grabs another layer of clothing, looking like light combat gear. "You're turning me into a mummy." Rhys doesn't answer, intent on getting him dressed as quickly as possible. The feeling of frustration, the inability to help out in any other way than trying to move in the right direction as he is being dressed, is making him feel cranky. And he, too, now feels anxiety.

The fact Rhys refuses to leave him behind, abandon him, is something for which he is extremely grateful. However, he also knows full well it diminishes Rhys' chance of survival, and that pisses him off to no end. He scowls.

Rhys glances up to see how he's doing, grins at the look on his face. "You look constipated." He watches Steve glare at him, the frown on his face deepening.

"No, it's just ..." Suddenly, the man with the blue eyes speaks up in his mind. _'It's just his aneurysm face.'_

Rhys catches the sudden, far-off look. "Another memory?" Steve blinks, then stares at him, looking confused. "I guess." He grunts as Rhys puts on the light combat clothes. "OK, let me get the last things together and then we can move out. We need to hurry."

He forces himself to focus on the here and now again. Yes, he thinks they're running out of time as well. That clean-up team can't be too far behind, and they're slowed down because ... well, because of him. Watching Rhys, he sees him unfold what seems to be a set of large straps, looking somewhat like a climbing harness. "What is _that_ ?"

Rhys turns to him, smiling. "That, my friend, is your ticket out of here." He watches Steve raise an eyebrow. "It's an IPC, or Injured Personnel Carrier. A nifty commercialized improvement of the old rifle sling trick to carry out injured soldiers while keeping your hands free. I got this one issued while serving with MARSOC."

As he speaks, Rhys gets out two sets of heavy insulated camouflage pants and parkas, as well as a pair of black and a pair of white heavy boots. "And the reason I'm wrapping you like a mummy is because you won't be walking, so not generating heat. Trust me, you'll thank me later."

Rhys carefully pulls a heavy, woolen balaclava over Steve´s head, wincing in sympathy as the other man lets out a soft grunt of pain. He puts woolen gloves on his hands, and after he hoists him in the insulated pants, he rolls him from side to side to put the parka on him. After slipping on insulated mittens, Rhys finally puts the white so-called ´bunny´ boots on Steve's feet and laces them up.

Feeling like a tightly swaddled baby, he watches as Rhys quickly dons a balaclava, puts on his own insulated outer layer of clothes, then puts on the black boots. The IPC harness is placed on the floor, next to the mattress. Before he knows it, Rhys straddles over him on the mattress, locking his gaze on him.

"This is gonna hurt, Steve, so you better grit your teeth."

The next ten minutes progress from mildly uncomfortable to painful and then right on through to agonizing. Both time and circumstances are not in his favor, and he does his best to help as Rhys rapidly pulls him first in a sitting, and then in a standing position. When Rhys moves him off the mattress onto the floor, he even manages to move his feet in the right direction.

However, the pressure of Rhys' arms on his back is becoming painful, his muscles are starting to scream blue murder, and he sucks in his breath, then does what Rhys told him to do; he clamps down his jaws and grits his teeth. When Rhys gently lowers him down on top of the IPC, his back suddenly feels on fire again, and he groans.

"You OK there, buddy?" He focuses on Rhys, his vision trying to swim off in an unknown direction. "M'kay ... g'head." Rhys looks worried but nods; he feels him raise his knees to fasten straps around his upper legs, then Rhys pulls the top of the IPC up underneath his arm pits. "Ready?" The green eyes stare into his, and he manages to nod.

Next, Rhys turns around and seats himself between his legs. He pulls the IPC up on either side of his body, then leans back against him, almost resting his shoulders against his own. The weight nearly suffocates him, causing flashes of agony to run through his back, and he moans again, fighting hard to stay conscious. Rhys quickly puts his arms through the created shoulder straps and tightens them up, pulling him snug against his body before securing the chest buckle.

The jerking movement sends white hot pain through his head and back, and this time he can't prevent a short, stuttering scream. "All right, almost there; hang on." Rhys' calming words reach him through a dense fog of pain, yet he still manages to utter a weak "Kay." But when his right arm is pulled tight and forward, then Rhys suddenly rolls over to his left so he's on all fours, it becomes too much.

He blacks out.

* * *

The men in the black car are frustrated beyond belief. They have left earlier than planned, fueled both by adrenaline and the self-preserving urge to please John Yun. Road conditions had been wet but manageable, and they had been making good time.

And then, just before they reached Neilton, the rain first turned to sleet, then snow. The tiny wet flocks soon became larger, lazily drifting down, covering both road and surrounding scenery. It would have been beautiful if it wasn't for the fact that within just fifteen minutes the driver had to concentrate all his efforts on keeping the car from sliding all over the place.

When the car finally reaches the North Shore Road turn-off, tempers within the car are flaring. Their mood doesn't improve when, just several minutes later, the car plowing through inches of snow on a road which barely is wide enough to accommodate two cars passing each other, the driver suddenly has to slam the brakes to prevent running into a large brown elk which wanders into its path.

The car skids out of control, coming to rest against a large tree alongside the road. The elk, now joined by two of its mates, stands gazing as the driver gets out to survey the damage. The right side of the car is badly dented, and the rear tire is slowly deflating.

The foreign sounding expletives need no subtitles to convey their meaning.

* * *

The plane will touch down at Seattle in an hour and a half. Danny has fallen asleep shortly after take-off, oblivious to the hustle and bustle of the other passengers around him. Sheer exhaustion, coupled with the relief of having decided to follow his heart instead of his duty, finally provides him his much needed rest.

His head resting against a pillow stuffed against the window beside him, his sleep is devoid of dreams.

* * *

Rhys is slowly rising to his feet, testing the weight and balance of the unconscious man on his back. He registered the moment Steve blacked out, felt his weight suddenly increase as he went limp and unresponsive.

He adjusts the straps on his shoulders, then the ones supporting Steve's legs so his feet are further up from the ground, moving him to a more seated position. He has used the IPC on numerous occasions already, and knows how to adjust it just right so it not only provides maximum comfort to the man on his back, but also gives himself complete freedom to move.

After once more double checking all the fastenings, he pulls down both Steve's sleeves and pants legs so his wrists and ankles are completely covered to prevent heat loss, then pulls his parka's hood snug. Walking over to the table, he checks the weapons, then stuffs a gun in each pocket of his parka.

Next, he puts on the back-pack, adjusting it so it rides high on his chest. Pulling up his balaclava, then his jacket's hood, he gently pulls Steve's arms forward over his shoulders. He settles his head on his left shoulder, Steve's mouth against his neck, then uses one hand to check his breathing. All is OK.

He takes one more look around the cabin, then opens the door and steps outside into the snow.


	14. Flight and fight

**Author's note:** My apologies for the long delay between updates, but my wrist balked at using the keyboard. I'll be writing updates for the other stories as well; hope to publish most, if not all of them, the coming weekend.

_To the Guest Reviewers - Sorry I can't answer in person, but I am very honored by your praise! Hopefully the story will continue to meet your expectations._

* * *

"You can either lie there, admit defeat and wallow in it;  
or you can get up and shake the sand out of your chaps and have another shot."

\- Alex O'Loughlin -

* * *

14\. FLIGHT AND FIGHT

Changing a tire in inches of snow, then having to push a car back onto a slippery road is not an enjoyable task, and by the time the men get back in the car, chilled and wet, the overall mood - as understatements go - is foul.

Silent, the only sound the occasional expletive uttered by the driver each time the car threatens to spin in an unwanted direction, the three men are becoming increasingly tense in anticipation of what is to come. It will be the end of the road for them, in more ways than one.

Not only does their journey take them off roads that are properly maintained, but what will go down in the cabin will either end the life of one Commander Steven J. McGarrett - or theirs. They will succeed or they will fail; John Yun will be pleased or angry.

The piece of the old map found on the back of the photograph directs them towards a turn-off onto a forest development road, barely visible now beneath its white cover. It's just a few more miles, but at the speed they've been going it will take them at least fifteen minutes or more, instead of the normal nine.

Chen Zhi's mouth is set in a grim line; having wasted part of what little time they have left on local wildlife and mundane chores has grated his nerves. He is more than a little annoyed, anxious to finish this task, leave this cold place and return to Oahu.

The mood of the men doesn't improve when, twenty minutes later, they find the cabin empty.

* * *

The man on his back is heavy, and the slow progress through the snow has caused sweat to start running down his body; the layer of underclothing he's wearing has become drenched over the past hour. He realizes he either needs to keep moving or stop somewhere to dry off. He decides to keep going for now.

Sunlight has started to filter through the trees, and he can see the end of the small road up ahead. There's a small creek nearby which he will use to get to the other side of the road. He has taken every precaution to throw possible pursuers off track, prevent them from picking up their trail.

When they left earlier, he followed the narrow, worn out trail to the small shed at the back of the cabin, hoping the snow would soon cover his tracks. Going around the shed, he had gone deeper into the forest until he came to one of the numerous creeks running through the area, then stepped into the water.

Following the creek bed, he had trudged through the shallow water for nearly fifteen minutes, carefully choosing his footing to maintain his balance, until he sensed they were parallel to the point where the road ended; there he had stepped out onto solid ground again, only to step into another creek ten minutes later, this one bypassing the point where the road end.

From the track leading off the road towards the cabin to the end of the road itself is only half a mile, just a few minutes by car even with the snow; however, he's betting on their pursuers first investigating the cabin and its immediate surroundings, not realizing he will double back towards the road; not knowing where he's headed.

Adjusting the straps holding the still unconscious man against his back, he trudges on.

* * *

Danny is settling himself in the rental car, adjusting the seat and mirrors, when his phone rings. He has turned it on again as soon as he left the terminal in Seattle. Looking at the display, he sees it's Chin, and frowns. Honolulu is two hours behind, so it's barely seven in the morning there.

"What the hell are you doing, Danny?!" Chin sounds as far removed from his normal composed demeanor as Seattle is from Oahu. Danny sighs.

"And a good morning to you as well. I take it it's still too early for you to have done your Zen exercises, or else you wouldn't be trying to bite my head off through a phone. Which, if I may remind you, still is an impossible feat, even with the help of today's advanced electronics."

It remains quiet on the other side. "Hel-lo? Wrong number by any chance?"

Chin finally speaks. "Denning called to tell me he had a most interesting, _very _early conversation with Henrietta Lange from NCIS LA, then told me to check where you were. Obviously you disabled both your phone and GPS, and when Kono and I swung by your place you weren't there, Danny."

Silent for a moment, Chin continues. "However, we did find your gun and badge. We ... it was a relief to find your bathroom empty as well." Danny swallows. "I'm sorry, Chin; you should know me better than that. I would never ..." He stops the lie before it escapes his lips.

"We saw you, Danny. We watched you heading down that path." Chin sounds subdued. "So, no, we didn't know better." He doesn't mention how much self-control he had to exert to force himself to open the bathroom door, or the tears of relief glistening in Kono's eyes after finding it empty.

Not prepared to dwell on the subject, Danny tries changing the mood. "You need to reign in the rookie, Chin. I assume she picked the lock?" He takes the silence as an affirmative. "She's been hanging around Steve too long." The moment the words leave his mouth he feels apprehension slam back into his chest.

"Yeah, although Steve would've probably just kicked in the door." Chin sounds slightly defeated. "I take it that's where you're going? To find Steve?" Danny can hear the gentle undertone, knows his friend does not approve but understands, having been privy to Danny's slide into abject misery, into pure hopelessness.

Danny scrapes his throat, trying to find his voice as emotion suddenly paralyzes his vocal chords. "Yes, I am, Chin" he says, trying to impart more self-assuredness than he actually feels. "And before you start, I am aware of the consequences. I know this will probably get me fired." He swallows, his tone softening. "I am very sorry to have done this to you and Kono, but I have no choice."

"I know." Chin sounds resigned.

Leaning his head against the head rest of the car seat, Danny closes his eyes, fully aware of the severity of his actions. But it is as he just said; he doesn't have a choice. Not anymore. He needs to find Steve, come hell or high water. He needs to know.

"Danny?"

"Yes?"

Chin remains quiet for a moment, then takes a deep breath. "Be careful." It sounds like _'Goodbye'_.

Danny nods, then realizes his friend can't see him. He wishes the other team members were right there by his side, wishes it was all of them there. However, if nothing else, these past few weeks have taught him that wishing for something doesn't get you anywhere.

Wishes haven't brought Steve home.

"I will."

* * *

"That _stupid_ son of a bitch!" Lou's anger is spilling over, causing him to slam his hands on the table. The coffee mug freezes halfway to Kono's mouth as she watches the big man's reaction with eyes grown large; Chin has just told him Danny has left for the mainland.

Kono sighs, then sips the warm coffee. She had been drying herself off after enjoying some early morning surfing, when Chin's third message marked 'urgent' came in on her phone. Frowning, she had immediately called him, then headed straight for Danny's place to find Chin already waiting there.

When knocking had not resulted in Danny appearing at the door she had picked the lock, ignoring the soft angry mumbles coming from her cousin. The badge and gun on the table had immediately caught their attention, and the memory of Chin hesitating at the bathroom door, both of them terrified of what they might find there, causes a sudden chill to run over her back.

Lou looks at Chin. "Denning will have his ass for this." There's a pensive look on Chin's face. "I don't know about that. Maybe that depends on whether or not he'll find Steve." He looks at Lou. "It also depends on whether or not we'll be able to keep Denning alive. The surfing event is tomorrow."

The trio looks at each other in frustration. So far, they haven't had any luck in convincing the Governor that his life may be in danger. They have no proof of an assassination attempt, nothing besides rumors indicating a Hong Kong Triad boss is setting up shop in Honolulu; everything is based on theories, hear-say, _assumptions_.

Chin sighs. "Steve would be able to get through to Denning."

Steve, however, is not there.

* * *

The men have turned the cabin inside out, Chen Zhi _furious_ that their target has managed to escape yet again. Examining Archie's body, they realize they are just several hours behind their prey; all evidence points towards a hurried escape, the fire in the wood stove still burning.

"The hostage was wounded, boss, shot. Look." One of the men points towards the blood stains on the sheet and pillow, holds up the tray Rhys used to treat Steve's wounds. They found evidence of the obvious struggle that must have taken place, as well as the bullet lodged in the wall behind the mattress.

When they go outside, the track towards and behind the shed is still visible, although the snow has already partially covered most of it. Brushing away the new snow, looking at the depth of the foot prints, it is easy to reach a conclusion. "The wounded man was carried by another man; it's just the two of them."

They follow the track leading into the woods, sometimes doubling back when it becomes too difficult to make out, picking it up again at a point where it stands out clearly. Coming to the little creek, Chen frowns. The man they're chasing, preventing them from tying up that last loose end, is smart. However, Chen's no fool either.

"You" he points at one of the men, "go that way and look for foot prints on both banks. Look _everywhere_! And you do the same in that direction." He waits, standing at the edge of the creek, thinking of how John Yun will be pleased when he can call and tell him that the job's done, carefully pushing away the thought of another possible outcome.

Two men, one wounded and being carried, in the middle of a snow covered wilderness.

This will be easy.

* * *

The pain in his head has a rhythm; it follows the movement he is slowly becoming aware of, reverberates along his spine to find an echo in his lower back. He is slumped forward at a slight angle, his right arm dangling by his side; the back of his head is resting within the crook of his left elbow, his left wrist held fast by something. Breathing in, he inhales the scent of sweat, the crisp cold air warmed by the heat of the body he is leaning against. He hears the steady grunt of labored breathing, feels its movement translated against his own chest.

When he opens his eyes, he initially sees nothing but darkness, and for a moment he panics, starting to struggle. The hand on his wrist tightens its grip, prevents him from rearing back.

"Hey, easy there Steve. It's OK man." Rhys' voice.

Memory comes flooding back, and he realizes he's being carried, remembers them leaving the cabin. He forces himself to relax again, but his muscles feel stiff, cramped, and he can't prevent himself from softly groaning against Rhys' neck.

"Try to hang on a little longer, Steve. I'm gonna stop as soon as I find a good spot where we can hole up for a while. I need to take a break anyway. Will you be OK still for a little while?"

He breathes out, manages a soft "OK". The steady pace is hypnotic, pushing down the pain to where it doesn't control him, and his eyes flutter close again as he sinks into something that is neither sleep nor unconsciousness.

* * *

Olympia is a large, sprawling city with beautiful scenery, but Danny registers little of the mixture of nature and architecture as he drives through, glad to be able to leave Interstate 5 and take exit 104 onto Route 101 North towards Aberdeen.

When he stops for gas a little later, he uses the opportunity to find the number for the Aberdeen Police Department. Giving a summary version of why he's calling, he is switched through to a detective of the Investigations Devision who introduces himself as Aaron James. "Detective Williams, to what do I owe the pleasure of this collegial call?"

Danny draws in a deep breath, then tells the story of Steve's abduction, the ads on Craigslist, the video they've received, Five-0's theories, their fear for the safety of both their friend and the Governor's life, as well as the lack of action on the part of the mainland law enforcement due to insufficient evidence. By the time he's finished his voice is trembling.

James remains quiet for what seems forever, and Danny sighs, already expecting to be told he's trying to solve the unsolvable. "You think the same as the San Diego PD, that it's all circumstantial." Danny states the fact sounding subdued, and James' response is as shocking as it is surprising. "No, actually I don't. From what you tell me, I think there's too many coincidences for it to be circumstantial."

Danny pulls back to look at his phone, then puts it to his ear again. "That ... I have to admit, that's not what I thought you would say. Why are you saying that?" James' voice is calm when he answers. "Gut instinct. I'm sure you know what that is; you've been following it."

Yes, Daniel Williams knows what gut instinct is. It's what has kept him going, it's been the thing that has dragged him back every time he threatened to slide into that dark abyss, screaming; it's the thing telling him that no, Steve is _not_ dead, despite what logic and lack of hard proof try to tell him. Gut instinct is what has made him throw all caution to the wind and put his badge on the coffee table; it's his drive to find Steve.

Gut instinct, and the desperate hope that, please God, let everybody else be _wrong_.

James' voice pulls Daniel out of the quagmire of his mind. "Sorry ... what?" James repeats the question. "Can you come to Aberdeen to talk this over?" Danny swallows. "I'm actually less than an hour's drive away, so, yeah." It's still hard to fathom that here, finally, is somebody who is willing to listen, somebody who doesn't just flat out tell him that there isn't enough evidence to run an investigation.

"Good. Once you get here, we'll put all the information together and start looking for your partner. And Detective Williams?"

"Yes?"

"Please be careful driving over here."

Danny smiles, oddly moved by the fact that the sentiment just uttered by a complete stranger happens to be nearly identical to Chin's words earlier that morning.

"I will, Detective James. I will."

* * *

By the time Rhys has managed to cross to the other side of the Forest Development road and pick up Canoe Creek, he is exhausted. Plowing through the snow with Steve on his back has demanded every ounce of strength, both physical and mental. After nearly three hours of strenuous walking, he is almost relieved when he feels movement on his back again. This is a good time to take a well deserved break.

"Hey there, are you back in the Land of the Living?" Rhys carefully reaches back to touch Steve's face.

He feels the fingers moving over his face, hears Rhys asking something, but the words don't quite make it through the fog permeating his mind. His head still hurts, and as he slowly tries to move it, there's a flash of pain, causing him to moan softly. Rhys stops walking, tapping his cheek more insistingly.

"Steve. You awake, buddy?"

Trying to place his right arm against Rhys' back to get some leverage, he is painfully reminded of the bullet grazing him. "Ow ... _shit!_" The pain causes sudden chills to run through his body, resulting in the awareness that not only does his bladder needs emptying, but that despite the layers of clothing Rhys has put on him, there's a deep, bone chilling cold seated in his body.

Rhys picks up on the fact that Steve has started to shiver; he can feel the tremors against his back. He knows he needs to quickly find a place for them to warm up; his own feet are numb from having walked through the icy water, and just now when he touched Steve's face, it felt too cold.

"OK, hang on a few more minutes, Steve. I'm going to find us a place to camp." Turning away from the creek, he walks deeper into the woods, making his way through the undergrowth of ferns. When he comes to a large maple tree surrounded by several Sitka spruces, he quickly surveys the surroundings and decides that it's the perfect spot to set up camp.

Walking around the trees so they're shielded from unwanted prying eyes, he clears what little snow there is around the base of the maple tree. Rooting and shuffling around with his boots he uncovers dry leafs and ferns, sweeping as much of the material together as he can. It will have to do for now.

"Steve? I'm going to get down now and then do the reverse of how I got you on my back, so I can get the IPC off, OK?" He touches Steve's face again, feels him nod. He checks the ground for stones and sharp objects, clearing away a few small branches, then uses the tree as support as he slowly hunches down, then turns and first drops to his knees, then to his hands.

He feels himself tense up as Rhys slowly tilts his body to the left, keeping a tight grip on his wrist, then lies down on his side so both of them are now on the ground. Next, Rhys unfastens the IPC's chest buckle, gets up, grabs the shoulder straps and maneuvers him forward and up so his back's against the tree, his butt on top of the dry leaf material.

Rhys takes a good look at him, then nods. "OK Steve, give me a minute and then I'm gonna get you warm and covered, OK?"

He tries to talk through chattering teeth, wanting to impart the _very_ pressing urge to empty his bladder first. "N... need t.. to piss." He watches Rhys frown, then nod again. Before he knows it, Rhys has grabbed the shoulder straps again and hauls him sideways, dragging him a few feet from the dry patch he's been resting on.

Before he knows it, Rhys has opened the Velcro front of his outer camouflage pants, then opens his combat pants and pulls down the zipper of the fleece overall. Finally he pulls open his woolen underwear, releases him and then tilts him over on his left side.

"Do your thing, man. Make sure you empty it all, don't want to run the risk of a bladder infection."

He doesn't need any encouragement, uttering a sigh of relief the second he lets his bladder go. Making sure he expels every last drop, he manages to tuck himself back into his underwear. Rhys rolls him onto his back again and helps closing the rest of his clothes, then drags him back towards the tree.

Leaning against the tree, shivering, he watches through half lidded eyes as Rhys starts putting a shelter together; it's obvious he has picked the site for a reason. A medium sized spruce close to the maple tree has snapped off, leaving a trunk about four feet high; the stem is still attached, and the branches have kept the ground beneath them free from snow, the soil dry.

Rhys saws off several of the larger branches with the serrated edge of his knife to create an opening, tests the stem for stability, then starts snapping and sawing off the branches pointing towards the ground. After fifteen minutes or so, he has created a small cave-like space, enveloped by the outer branches still covered in snow. He finishes by arranging the smaller branches and dry material in a layer covering the ground.

Walking over towards Steve, Rhys hunkers down and touches his face, watching the half closed eyes. "You still with me?"

He slowly nods, the shivering coming in fits and starts, making it nearly impossible to stutter out a coherent answer. "C... cold." Hypothermia has set in, making his thoughts sluggish and slowing down his breathing. He finds it hard to keep his eyes open.

Rhys narrows his eyes, recognizing the signs, and knows he has to hurry to warm Steve up. He quickly walks over to the backpack, unties the two rolled sleeping bags, takes out the two Mylar blankets and places them on top of the layer of branches underneath the tree. Next, he puts the bivvy bags with the sleeping bags inside on top of the blankets.

"OK, up and at 'em." He pulls Steve forward using the IPC, then grunts as he just slings him over his shoulder. The muscles in his back scream in protest and he needs to take a few steps to regain his balance, but he manages to maneuver Steve into the temporary shelter. Quickly taking of Steve´s boots, placing them inside the enclosure, he grabs the backpack, puts that inside as well and then sets the larger cut off branches upright to seal off the space.

Rhys uses another large branch to sweep over the ground outside while moving backwards towards the fallen tree, covering as many of their tracks as possible. Then he places that branch against the opening as well. It isn´t perfect, but it´s only temporary and will serve its purpose for now.

Quickly Rhys starts to remove Steve´s outer clothing, then takes off the lighter jacket and pants underneath as well. The other man groans, but Rhys knows he has to move fast; it's important to warm Steve up before the hypothermia gets worse. The fact that he doesn't shiver continuously now doesn't bode too well.

When Steve is down to his fleece and woolen underclothing, Rhys carefully maneuvers him onto one of the zipped open sleeping bags, then zips both it and the outer bivvy bag closed. The waterproof outer shell will serve to keep Steve's body heat inside the sleeping bag. He rolls up the balaclava so it serves as just a hat, then pulls the hood of the sleeping bag over Steve's head.

While Rhys is taking off his own outer clothing he keeps a sharp eye on Steve, nodding in satisfaction when the man starts to shiver violently again. It means the hypothermia is reversing as he's warming up. Quickly taking off his drenched socks, Rhys stuffs them in an empty ziplock bag and then inside the backpack, from which he pulls out another, dry pair. He's glad he grabbed a few of them; having seen the effects of frost-bite, he knows the importance of keeping hands and especially feet dry in cold climate conditions.

Reaching over, he taps Steve on the face again. "Hey buddy, wake up, OK? Let me see them peepers of yours."

He tries to move his head away from the annoying fingers. The bone chilling cold has slowly started to fade away, replaced by an enveloping warmth. All he wants to do now is sleep, exhausted by both the cold and the jarring journey on Rhys' back.

"C'mon on, Steve. You can sleep later on, but I have to know you're doing OK. Open your eyes."

Rhys continues to tap him on the face, and irritated, he opens his eyes and looks straight into green ones, hovering mere inches above him. Rhys' concerned look immediately changes, a smile lighting up his face. "Worrywart." He says it without his teeth chattering, frowning at Rhys.

"Well, you give me enough cause, don't you think?" Rhys sighs. "I already had a bad feeling about dragging you outside, you're still too weak and your system still too compromised." Rhys frowns, wondering how he'll get Steve to the planned destination without him succumbing to the cold.

He instinctively knows what Rhys is thinking, and he gives him a baleful stare. "Told you to leave me there. I'm just dead weight." He's not out for a pity party, just stating a very obvious fact. Without him, Rhys would be much better off, stand a much better chance at escaping whomever was after them. He manages to scoot down further into the sleeping bag, enjoying the warmth it provides him, all the while staring at the man sitting next to him.

Rhys stares right back at him, eyebrows drawn down, his mouth suddenly set in a grim, tight line. "Like it or not, you're _my_ responsibility now, have been from the moment I decided to jump in this twisted little game. And I take my responsibilities very serious."

He sighs, shaking his head and regretting it the minute he does; pain flashes behind his eyes, and he closes them for a minute. When he looks at Rhys again, the grim look has been replaced by what seems to be a mixture of concern and exasperation.

"Leave no man behind, remember? Never did, and I'm not starting now." Rhys rocks back on his heels, pulling up the sleeping bag around Steve's neck. "You can sleep for about an hour, I'd use the time if I were you."

He frowns, then nods, realizing Rhys won't give in to him, refuses to see reason. It takes only a few moments before sleep drags him under, the warm sleeping bag soothing his cramped muscles. Minutes later, he starts dreaming of the man with the blue eyes, giving him a serious look as he speaks to him.

'_I'm coming, Steve. Just hang on.'_


	15. Target acquired

AUTHOR'S NOTE - This is pretty short, but hopefully worth the wait. RL is just not cooperating right now.

In answer to the Guest Review: thank you for your kind words and positive review, but the story "Guilt is a slippery slope" is **not **mine! It is written by Fifilla, and I totally agree with you that it is an awesome story! Having said that, I do hope you continue to enjoy _my_ stories as well ;-)

* * *

"Be sure you positively identify your target before you pull the trigger."

\- Tom Flynn -

* * *

15\. TARGET ACQUIRED

* * *

Danny is exhausted, eternally grateful for the specific directions Detective James has called him back with halfway through the drive. Even so he almost messes up, the metal grating of the bridge over the Wishkah river in Aberdeen jolting him aware enough to quickly scoot into the right lane before missing his turn.

The moment he sees the drive-through bank on his right at East Market Street, he knows the police station is just past the intersection and he is almost there. A few moments later he turns into the parking area of the Aberdeen Police Department, and when he turns off the ignition, his head slowly sinks onto the steering wheel.

It takes him several minutes to overcome the bone deep lethargy that suddenly suffuses him, and Chin's words from earlier that morning, his quiet _Be careful_, echoes through his head; he knows he should thank his lucky stars he has made it without any incidents.

Straightening, he takes out the keys and exits the car, locking it behind him. Turning right out of the parking area, he walks along the building until he comes to the main entrance, then enters. Reporting at the reception, he is directed to a waiting area.

As he sits there, waiting for Detective James, Danny suddenly wonders what the hell he is doing here.

* * *

Alfonso Joseph Richter Macedo - A.J. to the very few friends he has in this world - is sitting on the bed of the rented cabin just off Kamehameha Highway, taking the pins out of the barrel assembly of his Ruger 10/22. Even though he has performed this task too many times to count, his mind automatically repeats the little mantra of the order in which to disassemble his weapon.

The Ruger has always been his preferred killing tool; no high-powered, state-of-the-art rifles for him, preferring the low cost ammo, simple action and overall simplicity. It is the same weapon his grandfather has taught him how to shoot with all those years ago, and when the old man passed away, he left the rifle to his only grandson.

Granted, his _lolo_ might have had second thoughts if he had known what his grandson would be using it for years down the road, but A.J. is forever grateful for that gift. His familiarity with the rifle, coupled with his innate talent to just _aim, squeeze &amp; kill _ has both provided him with a high standing within his particular field of work and an abundant income.

Over time, fine tuning and several additions - like a compensator, suppressor and brass catcher - have not only ensured that A.J.'s bullets whisper along with less noise than a pellet gun, but that there is nothing left at any scene for investigators to find a lead. In all his years as a hit-man, A.J. has never been tied to a murder.

Finally, nothing screams _You're dead!_ like a .22 hollow point ricocheting inside a target's skull, destroying bits of gray matter and a person's identity along its tumbling path. Ensuring the success of his contracts.

At fifty-six A.J. basically still has the same lithe, sinewy build he had in his youth when growing up in the seedier parts of the Tondo district of Manila. His Filipino ancestry - more specifically, his grandmother's Japanese genetic heritage - makes him blend in with the local multiracial population of Oahu without attracting attention. That, as well as the fact that A.J. comes highly recommended within certain circles, has been one of the primary reasons that one night several weeks ago, A.J. received a call from a certain John Yun.

"_Mr. Macedo, my name is John Yun. I have a business proposition." A.J. had remained silent, waiting for the other man to explain himself further. The fact that the man had managed to obtain his phone number meant he already had successfully passed the scrutiny of A.J.'s installed security levels; any unwanted attention would've been swiftly dealt with without A.J. ever being involved._

Yun had implied the business proposition was not to be sneered at; a job requiring the highest skill level and therefor resulting in an astronomically high amount of money. "It's a six figure payment." A.J. had thought about that for a minute. "Make it seven figures and I'll meet you to discuss the details."

It had taken less than five minutes for Yun to realize that any less would mean he would have to look for a new contractor. And besides the fact that Macedo's credentials implied that he really was one of the best in his field, there was one very important additional factor which, in Yun's opinion, made Macedo the best man for the job: there would be no loose ends afterwards.

Nothing would lead back to Yun.

The subsequent meeting in Honolulu had been short; much to A.J.'s pleasant surprise and approval, Yun was a man who came straight to the point, wasted no energy on either niceties or superfluous details. The contract, taking out Hawaii's top honcho, is indeed high risk, and absolutely worth the stupendously high payment A.J. requested.

The money will go a long way towards ensuring a comfortable future for A.J.'s two daughters, and he has already left instructions with a friendly lawyer for the way it should be invested, producing as much interest as possible. God willing, Amihan and Rhea still have most of their lives ahead of them, and even though A.J. never had - and never will - play a part in those lives, he considers it his responsibility as their father to smooth out their future paths as much as he's able to.

It will be the last thing he'll be able to do, his legacy to them_._

* * *

He watches the man with the blue eyes stumble towards him, his breathing labored. As he rushes to assist him, the man leans against a wall, unable to walk any further, then slowly starts sliding down as his lips turn blue. Desperate eyes stare up at him. "Something's not right ... I can't breathe."

He feels cold, naked fear course through him as he listens to the breathing becoming more ragged, shallower as the man with the blue eyes struggles to inhale oxygen. "You OK?" he hears himself asking, listening to the horrible, rasping breath becoming louder. "My chest, I don't know ... I can't breathe."

He hears himself shouting out orders, listens as another voice calls out in horror: "He's starting to convulse!" The legs of the man with the blue eyes start beating a tattoo against the ground, his arms jerking and flailing.

He's dying ...

* * *

The scream which threatens to erupt from his throat is cut off before it escapes his lips by a hand clamping down on his mouth, while another hand is forcibly pressed on his chest to hold him down. His eyes fly wide open and encounter Rhys' green ones, intently glaring at him to convey an urgent message while Rhys shakes his head. The horrific images dissipate in seconds and he nods, causing Rhys to slowly remove the hand from his mouth.

"They're down by the creek" whispers Rhys in Steve's ear as he pulls out his weapon. He counts himself fortunate that he reacted quick enough to stop Steve, who obviously has had some sort of nightmare, from screaming. Now all they need to do is keep their fingers crossed and hope that Rhys' earlier activities will pay off.

Terrified of falling asleep as well, Rhys has spent the best part of an hour covering their tracks leading from the creek to the bivouac site. He has scooped fresh snow from an unobtrusive spot behind their improvised shelter into one of the mylar blankets, carried it to the edge of the creek and then, walking backwards, carefully filled in all his footsteps, scattering the snow as if he was sowing seeds, placing small twigs here and there.

Back at the site of the tree they're hiding underneath, he scattered more snow to hide their activities, then dumped the last part of the snow over the branches of the fallen tree itself. Carefully rearranging the cut off branches at the entrance, it would take a well trained eye to spot any evidence of human activity.

Less than half an hour later he heard voices down at the creek, coming in their direction, and he has been listening intently, judging how close they are, calculating at which point he needs to take action. Glancing at Steve to see whether he was still asleep, he caught the moment the man jerked awake and was able to keep him from crying out.

Rhys looks down at Steve, sees he has turned over on his stomach, holding himself up on his uninjured arm, frowning in concentration, almost as if ... "You understand them?" he whispers softly, and he sees a look of wonder appear on the other man's face before he nods. Right then, one of the men utters a loud _"Diu!"_ and a grim little smile curls around Steve's lips.

The men down at the creek continue to talk, sounding as if they're discussing something, and to Rhys' relief the voices start to move off in the direction they came from. He waits another fifteen minutes, then Rhys deems it safe enough to turn to Steve and ask questions.

"What were they saying? And did you know you could understand Chinese?"

He lets himself flop back onto the sleeping bag, the strain from holding himself up causing him to shake with exhaustion. A sharp pain in his head reminds him of the terrifying scene at the cabin, and he absentmindedly tries to rub his head. Rhys' hand stops him before he inadvertently hurts himself.

"No, I didn't know I could understand them, and I think it was Mandarin, by the way." He watches Rhys lift an eyebrow. "Except that one guy cursing; that was Cantonese I think." He quickly tells Rhys what he managed to understand, that the Chinese were frustrated because they decided their prey hadn't come this way; that they'd lost the trail.

Rhys nods in approval. "Good. That means we have bought ourselves a little time." He looks at Steve, trying to judge how he feels. "We need to get moving soon; think you're up for it?"

He actually doesn't feel up to anything at this point, despite being warm and having slept. The memory of the nightmare comes flooding back, and he softly moans as he throws an arm over his face. Rhys gently pulls away the arm, then places a hand against the side of his face, forcing him to look at him.

"You screamed when you woke up, Steve. Or at least tried to. What was the nightmare about?" Rhys looks down at him, then feels his heart lurch at the look of devastating sadness that appears on Steve's face. When the other man's eyes finally look up at him, he sees they have tears in them.

"I think my friend is dead."

* * *

To say Samuel Denning isn't pleased is, well, like saying Mount Everest is nothing but a mole hill. His dark eyes are shooting with both fury and frustration as he barks his anger at the Five-0 team.

"Circumstantial evidence! _That's_ what all this is! You heard it from HPD, you heard it from the San Diego PD ... you have _nothing_ to support your theories!" He walks around the desk, then flops down in his chair, staring at the trio standing in his office.

Kono, that brazen young woman who has no qualms about confronting the most rabid of criminals, is frozen in place. She doesn't even dare sidle up to Chin to find comfort in her cousin's warm, strong presence. Not that he'd be able to provide it at this moment, tongue tied and shocked as he is himself at the Governor's outburst.

The only person who seems the least impressed is Lou. He stands there, big arms folded, staring at the man who is now busily breaking pencils, snapping them in frustration. "Sir, it's not like we've just plucked a bunch of theories out of thin air" he ventures in a calm voice.

"But that's _exactly_ what it sounds like, Grover. Dammit, you of all people should be more level headed." Denning glares at the big man, then sighs when he sees him lift an eyebrow. "Why would that be, Sir?" Denning waves a hand at Lou. "Well, you know, with all your years of experience as a Chicago cop ... you shouldn't be the one succumbing to conspiracy theories."

They both hear Chin's sucked in breath, and Denning knows he has gone too far. "That wasn't meant personally, Chin. I know you're a good cop." Before Chin has a chance to answer, Lou suddenly slaps his hands down and leans forward over the desk, causing Denning to sit further back in his chair.

"If you're so keen on cops' instincts, then you should take into account the fact that Danny, _Detective_ Williams, a cop with an incredible arrest record from New Jersey, right now is following up on numerous leads on the mainland in order to find Steve. And if anybody doesn't like acting on lack of evidence, it's him."

Denning sits still for a moment, then lets out a frustrated breath of air. "All right, OK. Just don't think for one _minute_ that Williams is in the clear for that stunt he pulled. I mean, Jesus ... do you know what it's like, being woken by an irate Henrietta Lange? Not a joyful experience, let me tell you."

They watch him as he thinks, then see him come to some form of decision. "So, what, if anything, is it you want me to do?" Chin is the one to answer this time, his voice barely able to hide the anger still seething within him at the Governor's previous remark.

"Let us protect you so one of our _conspiracy theories_ doesn't blow your head off tomorrow. _Sir._"


	16. Tracking

In which Steve forces a decision, trails disappear without a trace, and hunters are about to be tracked down themselves.

* * *

"Happy is he who can trace effects to their causes."

\- Virgil -

* * *

16\. TRACKING

"Just _listen_ to me for once, Rhys! Leave me here; tactically, it's the best decision." His eyes bore into the green ones, trying to force the issue. "It has nothing to do with leaving anybody behind; without me, you'll be able to move faster, and those Chinese don't think we're here anyway. I'll be fine."

Rhys looks at Steve's serious face, tries to read the man's real thoughts in his eyes. All he can see is that he's convinced of the logic behind his words; and admittedly, he will indeed be able to move faster without having to carry Steve on his back. It still goes against the grain, though.

"I just don't know, Steve; what if they decide to come back here again? You'll be a sitting duck." Rhys cocks his head, taking in the gaunt features, the obvious discomfort and pain evident in the eyes. He is torn between the sensible strategy Steve has just laid out, and the reluctance of abandoning an injured man. His gut tends to vote for taking Steve along, but his head concurs with moving ahead alone.

"Look, just leave me a piece and an extra clip. I'll shoot the first head that pops through the opening." He grins, trying to inject some humor into the situation. "I may be a sitting duck, but that way I won't be a _defenseless_ duck." He sees some of the tension leave Rhys' face and immediately knows he has won his case, turning serious once again. "It's the best tactical option, Rhys, and you _know _it is."

What he _doesn't_ tell Rhys is that he can't bear the thought of being carried again for any amount of time. His head is killing him, and there are other signs telling him that the bullet may have caused more damage than they both initially thought. The weariness suffusing him is becoming worse, and he has trouble forming coherent thoughts. So he needs Rhys to move, before the man finds out that there's something seriously wrong and refuses to leave him.

Mentally pulling himself up by his boot straps, he pushes for Rhys to go ahead and make a decision before he's no longer able to persuade him, no longer able to function. "Go on, man. The sooner you leave, the quicker you can get help out here." Relieved, he watches Rhys nod and then produce one of the weapons. He gets a firm grasp on the gun, accepts the extra clip of ammo Rhys hands him, then waves towards the opening in the make-shift cave.

"Get going, buddy. Don't worry about me, I'll still be here when you get back."

Rhys stares at him for a moment; something feels off, but he just can't put his finger on it. Steve's all but pushing him to leave, yet given the circumstances, that's only logical; they can really use some extra help right about now. Putting on his boots and jacket, Rhys lodges one final protest.

"Just so you know, I'm only doing this because it really _is_ the smart thing right now." It takes him less than five minutes to gear up; leaving the backpack and other items behind, he'll be able to move a lot faster. "Make sure you stay covered, and don't try to do anything stupid, OK? Here." Rhys takes a satellite phone from the backpack, switches it on and then hands it to Steve. "I took this off Archie, I have one as well." He pats the left pocket of his jacket. "If anything is wrong, _anything_, you call the number listed under contacts, OK? There's only one there."

He nods. "Got it." He offers another grin. "Just don't mope when I don't call you, which I probably won't." Swallowing the lump which has suddenly formed in his throat, he clasps the hand Rhys thrusts towards him. "Thanks, buddy." It's a covert _'Goodbye'_ which he hopes Rhys won't pick up on. He feels his eyes misting over as he watches the other man swiftly exiting the tree cave.

Yes, he'll definitely be here if and when Rhys returns. Just like him, he is not one to abandon a buddy, somebody he has gone through so much with by now. Even if he was able to, he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize Rhys' safety. So yeah, he'll be staying right there until Rhys returns.

He just isn't sure whether he'll still be alive by then.

* * *

The minute Detective Aaron James - a slim man whose dark hair, eyes and high cheek bones hinted at his native ancestry - took note of the short, blond man's lackluster handshake when he picked him up from the reception area, he silently steered him towards an office in the back of the building and placed a large mug of fresh brew in his hands.

"Would you like some sandwiches with that?" he'd asked, watching Danny Williams gratefully nod a _'yes, please'_ while sipping his hot coffee. He'd reached down into the scruffy leather bag he always took to work each day and drew out a brown paper bag. "The Missus made them from scratch, they're Philly Cheese Steaks. Hope you like 'em." He watched Williams smile appreciatively.

James had observed the Hawaiian detective - originally from New Jersey as he found out - savor the strong coffee before asking him about the food; he looked completely worn out, having traveled first by plane and then by car to get to Aberdeen. Purplish bruises underneath his eyes underscored his drawn, nearly gaunt features, no doubt caused by the anxiety and concern for his vanished partner.

Not just partner but _friend_; that much Aaron James had managed to gather from the information he'd put together in the time it took Danny to drive over. It went further to explain the man's willingness to potentially sacrifice his position as Second-In-Command with Hawaii's Five-0 State Police Task Force, and James silently applauded the man's loyalty to McGarrett.

He'd found plenty of information about the latter as well, but he was more interested in what _wasn't_ said, the things that were kept _out_ of McGarrett's files. A Navy SEAL for six years, then Naval Intelligence. And that was intriguing, because as far as James knew, it was usually the other way around. He suspected the Naval Intelligence career was actually a front, which meant McGarrett had been involved in some serious, deep undercover operations. Which meant the man was not 'just a Navy SEAL', and it explained why the Hawaiian Governor wanted him to lead his Task Force.

It also told James that Williams' belief that McGarrett was still alive, contrary to what San Diego PD and some other government services held true, was well founded. If _anybody _could survive what Williams told James his partner had gone through by now, it was McGarrett.

Nevertheless, time was obviously running out, even for someone as highly trained and skilled as McGarrett. And Williams knew that, or else he wouldn't have taken such a drastic and desperate step. So as soon as the blond detective had finished his coffee and sandwiches, Aaron had started going over the details of the Five-0 case.

"Hang on ... what were the names of those bikers again, the ones who were in Afghanistan together?"

Danny looks up at the man sitting across from him, then glances back down at the file. "Michael Lawson, Donald Stevenson, Ernesto Gutiérrez, Archibald Bradley and Thomas Moore. Lawson, Stevenson and Gutiérrez were taken out by the Triad, so the only leads we have left are Moore and Bradley." Danny raises an eyebrow. "Why?"

Aaron sighs. "I'm afraid you can scratch Thomas Moore from the list as well." He hears the surprised intake of breath, continues. "Colleagues responded to a call about a possible burglary somewhere around three this morning. Lady came home from a family visit just before midnight and noticed a car with its headlights off pull up at the house across the street. She thought it was weird, but the people went inside so she decided they were just visitors. However, when she got up a few hours later to use the bathroom she noticed the front door of the house was wide open and the car was gone, so she called it in." Aaron snorts. "Must be the only conscientious person living there, because when officers arrived at the scene, they found Moore with his brains scattered all over his kitchen floor, yet nobody called 911 about shots being fired. The house had been thoroughly ransacked as well, as if somebody had been looking for something."

Danny groans, slumping back in the chair. _'Another man dead, another potential lead to Steve's whereabouts gone.' _He shakes his head, rubbing his face in frustration. "That damn Triad acts faster than we can _think_ ! If this continues ..." His rant is interrupted by James, who has pulled up the report about the incident on his computer and is reading through the file, frowning.

"No, wrong. Moore _wasn't _killed by the Triad!" Aaron's eyes have an intense look in them as he turns around the computer screen and points at the report. "Look, here; the caller specifically stated she called in about a _burglary._ Nothing about any shooting! When colleagues interviewed her this morning she said she didn't hear any gun shots, but she _did_ state that the men in the car appeared to be Asian as far as she could make out. So ..."

"... if the Triad appeared _after_ the shooting, somebody else took out Moore!" Danny finishes for him. "So if not the Triad, then who?" He frowns, looking at the computer screen in front of him. "Bradley is the last one left. He managed to evade the Triad in San Diego, flew the coop before they got to him. And they found Moore's number listed on his phone bill ..." He looks at Aaron. "He's a smart bastard, and I'm inclined to thinking it was _Bradley_ who shot Moore, which begs the questions: what was Moore's part in all this, why did Bradley visit and then _shoot_ him, and what was it the Triad was looking for?"

"Well," says Aaron, looking at Danny, "if _I_ was Bradley, and I knew I was on someone's hit list, I'd not only try my damndest to stay alive, but to get _off_ the list as well. And the only way to do that is take away the reason why they'd want to kill me in the first place."

"Steve," whispers Danny, looking at Aaron. "_Steve_ is the reason."

Aaron nods. "So if Bradly went to visit Moore, and the Triad turned Moore's house upside down ..."

"... then the Triad doesn't know where Steve is kept, but Moore _did_!" Danny stares at the man across from him, then utters a heart-felt "_Fuck_!" He buries his head in his hands, groaning. When he looks up again, his eyes are filled with frustration and anxiety. "I _knew_ Moore was important somehow, but now what? My main lead dead, Bradley gone, and there's no ..."

Aaron holds up a hand, stopping the verbal flood. "First thing we're ... well, _I\m_ gonna do is pull up all the records with regard to property holdings for Moore. That last ad was from our neck of the woods, right?" Danny nods. "Then I'm betting we'll find something."

He sees a new light appearing in Williams' intense blue eyes; hope.

* * *

Rhys knows it's about two miles as the crow flies from the location where they've set up bivouac to his intended target - the Ranger station near Kestner Creek. He's been following Canoe Creek in the direction of North Shore Road, sometimes opting to walk through the shallow water, sometimes forced to make his way through the forest when the water gets too deep to walk along the bank.

Despite the rest at the bivouac, he's still exhausted from carrying Steve through the deep snow which has so uncharacteristically blanketed this area. However, he ignores the lethargy coursing through his bones, his mind set on one purpose, and one purpose only: find help, find a way to get out of this mess. Alive, preferably.

Leaving Steve behind was hard, especially because he has this gut feeling that all is not as well as both he and Steve may think, that the man may be injured more severely than they´ve thought. He also knows that, whatever the case, he needs to get Steve to a hospital. No matter how skilled he is, no matter how extensive his medical knowledge, the man needs specialized care.

Gritting his teeth, he trudges on.

* * *

"_Chiu!_" Frustration rolls off Chen Zhu in angry waves, and he kicks at a nearby stone. The apparent ease with which the men they're chasing have managed to evade capture, have managed to hide their tracks is making his blood boil. He and his companions are cold, wet and miserable, and the hours long hunt along the creeks and through the forest is taking its toll.

They need to change their game plan.

He looks at the two men leaning against the car, their faces passive lest their own frustration at the lack of results further infuriates their boss. Sighing, he flicks away the cigarette he's smoked down to the filter, then walks towards the car.

"OK, so this is not working." He watches the two peer up at him, expressions bland, waiting for him to continue. "It's safe to say they won't return to the cabin, and we've already established that they've must bypassed the road. So the question is: where are they headed?"

Rubbing a finger absentmindedly along his chin, he considers the potential answer to his own question. One of the men scrapes his throat, cautiously trying to catch his attention. "What?"

"On our way over here, before we took the turn onto the forest road, we passed by a ranger station." The man nervously taps his fingers against his thigh, then stops when Chen Zhu glances at his hand.

A ranger station. It's probably closed now, but it will have a phone, will have medical supplies, might even have weapons. It's as good a possibility as any other, maybe even the only option the fugitives have. Chen Zhu nods. "Good call." He walks towards one of the passenger doors of the car.

"Let's go."

* * *

Chin and Lou are at North Shore, checking out the location where the final events, and ultimately the winner's ceremony of the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing will take place the next day. "I don't like this; don't like it one bit" Lou complains as he scans the space around the podium. "Too many people can come in here."

Nodding, Chin agrees with his team mate's assessment of the situation. It will be nearly impossible to fully protect the Governor without drawing attention. And that, unfortunately, has been the only demand Denning has made.

"Whatever you have to do, work it out so it doesn't draw any attention. I'm here on my day off, enjoying time with my family. If you're wrong, I don't want any unnecessary stress."

An impossible demand, as far as Lou and Chin are concerned. Unless ...

"We could set up Kono with a rifle over there" Chin says, pointing at another, lower structure next to the main podium. "She'd have a good overview of the crowd, and maybe we can at least persuade Denning to remain in a specific, fixed spot."

Lou estimates the distance from the structure to the podium, then looks behind him at the area where the crowd will be. It's still too early for any of the events to take place, and there are hardly any people on the beach now. He grunts. "That's putting a lot of faith in Kono's abilities, Chin. I know you're cousins and all that, but ..."

Chin shakes his head, lets out a sigh. "Really Grover, sometimes ..." He eyes his team mate, a little frown between his eyes. "You really think I would let family relations prevail over our _job_ ? Risk Denning's safety just because I wanted my cousin in on this, without being _absolutely_ certain she's up for what needs to be done?" He shakes his head again. "Kono is not just my cousin, brah. She may be young but she's one hell of a shot, capable of shooting the head off a pin. If anybody's able to handle this, it's her."

Lou places a large hand on Chin's shoulder, feels the indignant tension there. "Look, you're right, OK? I wasn't thinking. It's just ... there's a lot riding on this. Five-0's reputation of being the Governor's Task Force not being the least of it." Turning around, Chin throws him a tight little smile.

"Which is _exactly_ why I suggested Kono."

* * *

A.J. Macedo leans back on the warm sand, holding his beer while he stares at the waves. There's not an ounce of tension in his loose, relaxed body, despite the fact that he noticed the two cops - or whatever law enforcement agency they represent - the minute they set foot on the beach. He covertly watches them scout the area surrounding the podium, the larger one's whole demeanor screaming _City Boy!_ while the obviously local boy telegraphs_ 'You have the right to remain silent ..._' purely by the set of his muscular shoulders and overall physique.

A.J. has seen too many law enforcement agents not to have his alarms go off whenever one of them is near. He also knows looks can be deceiving, and he has already determined that the seemingly bumbling and uncoordinated gait of the larger cop may be nothing but a ruse, estimating the man can get up to speed before anybody expects it. The smaller man seems like the quiet, self-controlled individual who knows he's capable at handling almost any situation thrown his way.

No, he doesn't underestimate these men. He is, however, amused by what they apparently have decided will be a good location to set up a protection detail. Because A.J. is no fool; he knows the presence of these two means that John Yun's plan, or at least the assassination part of it, has been blown. He also knows they have no idea how, or more importantly _who_ will execute that plan.

If A.J. had been made, the cops would have been all over him already, not even going through the trouble of scanning the area for potential hazards. So, even though they know something will go down, they haven't been able to fill in all the blanks. And that's just fine with A.J.

He already picked his preferred spot when he first arrived at North Shore, and by the looks of it, his decision doesn't need any changing. Satisfied, he gulps down the rest of his beer and gets up, slightly wincing at the pain in his legs. He knows the sickness has spread, will render him into a weak, powerless sack of bones before too much time has passed. However, that doesn't mean he is unable to do the job _tomorrow_.

As far as A.J. Macedo is concerned, Hawaii's Governor is as good as dead.

* * *

Danny stares at the display of his cell phone, slowly thumbing the _end_ button to disconnect the call he placed to HQ. Chin had been short but to the point. "What's up, Danny? We're kinda busy at our end here." The tone of his friend's voice, sounding even more direct than usual, served to even further drive home the sensation of having abandoned his team mates. It caused him to stutter.

Chin had sighed. "Look, please don't get me wrong; I understand why you left. To be honest, I expected you to go sooner, OK?" Danny's breath had hissed between his teeth, causing the other man to utter a short laugh. "Come on, brah. We all know the bond between you and Steve. To be honest, nothing you would've done would have amazed or surprised us."

The words had slowly seeped through to his still tired brain, then settled down into the realization that the decision he'd made to go find Steve actually had not freaked out the rest of the team.

"Well, maybe _Lou_ would still be amazed, but not Kono and I." Chin's voice had softened. "We get _why_ you had to leave, Danny. It's just that your _timing _sucks!" Danny had chuckled at that, heard Chin join him on the other end.

"I'm sorry, Chin, I truly am. I just ... I couldn't handle thing anymore. The nightmares, the feeling of helplessness, the lack of action from the mainland colleagues ..." Danny heaved a deep sigh.

_The guilt_.

He omitted mentioning that one. The guilt he'd felt at not acting on Steve's behalf, intensified by the dying Dream-Steve's recrimination of not coming for him. That had been the last straw, the final kick to _get going_.

Chin, however, being his normal Zen-like and compassionate self, had grasped what Danny failed to mention. "You know there's absolutely no reason to feel guilty about any of this, right? We _all_ fell short as far as Steve's concerned. None of has, as of yet, found anything which directly leads to Steve." He was quiet for a moment, then continued. "What you've done, Danny, is what any of us wishes we'd have the guts for."

Danny remained quiet, swallowing the lump Chin's words had caused to appear. It was this support, this _applause_ at his decision to follow the skimpy leads to the mainland that reminded him of the fact that the team, all of them, were more than partners, more than colleagues.

'_So this is the **true** meaning of ohana'._

"Anyway, as I said, your timing is pretty bad. We've managed to convince Denning to provide him with protection, so I'm going to have to go now. There's still a lot which needs figuring out before the big event tomorrow." Chin had sounded apologetic.

Danny swallowed again, realizing his presence was sorely missed amidst the new developments. He tried to lighten his dark thoughts with some humor. "That's great news, Chin. Did Kono torture him to make him come around?"

Chin sniggered. "Why didn't I think of that? And no, it was Lou. He actually told Denning to get down from his high horse and trust a cop's instinct. _Your_ instinct, to be precise. The fact that you left to find Steve actually helped to make him see that something's going on."

"Well," said Danny, trying to take in what Chin said, "I guess that there's a least one positive outcome in this whole situation then."

Chin had tactically cut off any further recriminations on Danny's part and said 'goodbye' after promising to update Danny on whatever events would unfold the next day. Although, of course, if Denning was assassinated, Danny most likely would hear it on the news before Chin got the chance to call him.

Danny's head snaps up as the door to James' office opens and a dark head peers to look first down one end, then the other end of the hallway. Not saying a word, Aaron crooks a finger at him, motioning for Danny to come back into the office. He follows Aaron inside and sits down, throwing the Aberdeen detective a questioning look.

He's still somewhat fazed by Aaron James, who not only doesn't question the lack of evidence with regard to Steve's disappearance but does, instead, credit the Internet ads and deaths in San Diego coupled with the abduction of Five-0's leader as tying in with each other and being part of a much larger ploy to divert the team's attention.

And why? _"Gut instinct. I'm sure you know what that is," _he told Danny on the phone. Yeah, Danny knows. He just wonders what has triggered the other detective's instinct, prompted him to stick out a helping hand where others simply scoffed at the whole situation.

"Did you get any good news from the home front?" Aaron shoots the question over his shoulder as he moves to sit down behind his desk, then taps a few keys on the computer's keyboard. He looks up at Danny, his brown eyes expectant.

"Well, yeah, I guess." Danny scratches the back of his head, then leans over and places both elbows on his knees, supporting his head in his hands. "Despite the fact, or rather _because_ of the fact I left for the mainland, my team members have been able to convince the Governor that somebody has put a hit out on him." He watches Aaron nod in satisfaction. "So they're now figuring out a way to put a security detail on him without raising any suspicions."

"Good, good. Sounds like your colleagues are making headway in the case then." Aaron punches one last key on the keyboard, then throws Danny a smile. "Seems to me things are finally starting to look up for you guys." He turns the computer screen towards Danny again. "The bad news is, I didn't find any records for property holdings in the name of Tomas Moore."

Danny stares at the screen, then at Aaron, not comprehending. "So we're stuck again." He watches the other man shake his head, then point at a paragraph on the screen.

"I said I didn't find any records in _Thomas_ Moore's name. However, I _did_ find records in _Joseph_ Moore's name, Thomas' father. Records of a permit for the construction of a cabin on a plot of land off NF-2473, near Quinault Lake." Aaron watches a flood of expressions run over the blond man's face, and his own expression softens as he detects the hint of tears in the other man's eyes.

"I think we should go take a look."


	17. Hope

"Hope is the pillar that holds up the world.  
Hope is the dream of a waking man."

\- Pliny the elder -

* * *

17\. HOPE

He has just traversed the southwesterly lower bend in Canoe Creek, cutting straight through the trees to his goal, when the sound of a car engine comes at him through the forest. Stopping, breath clouding from his mouth as he cocks his head to determine its position, he comes to the conclusion that it's somewhere on the road near the ranger station. And when he listens more closely, the sound clearly indicates it's actually moving _towards_ the station, towards _him._

Damn!

It's impossible to see the car, to find out whether it's friend or foe, but he knows he must risk every chance, even the one of being discovered by those hunting them. Gritting his teeth, commandeering every last bit of reserve, he heads in the direction where he knows he'll be able to pick up the Maple Glade Forest Trail leading towards the ranger station. Things should go more smoothly after that. Hopefully.

Rhys trudges on.

* * *

Detective Aaron James glances at the man sitting next to him, then focuses on the road again; travel conditions are far from optimal, the roads covered in deep snow, a not-all-too-often occurrence in this part of Washington state.

"How are you holding up?"

Danny stops biting his thumb nail, taking a moment to gather his jumbled thoughts while inspecting the digit. Then he sighs.

"I guess 'holding up' is a fair description. It's not like I have any other choice than to just sit and wait for what's to come, do I?" He turns to look at the Aberdeen detective, then lunges for the suicide handle as the car slips around a bend and starts plowing through yet another layer of snow. "_Jesus_!" Looking out the window, Danny frowns. "The way it's been going, I'm expecting we'll next start driving over horse trails."

Aaron smiles while concentrating on keeping the car straight. "It shouldn't get any rougher than this. The cabin is about ten, maybe fifteen more minutes up ahead." Then he frowns, slowing down the car, eventually stopping it and peering at the road over the steering wheel.

"What? More moose tracks?" Danny thinks back to the large animals which suddenly appeared in front of the car not half an hour ago, and the way Aaron had taken it in stride, shrugging Danny's anxiety off with "We've got lots of large animals over here" before gently nudging them off the road with the car.

Aaron shakes his head, still frowning. "No, no moose." He points out the window. "Car tracks, both old and new ones. Somebody's been here fairly recently." Danny feels a rush of anxiety course through him at the detective's words. They've discussed the possibility of running into the Triad's clean-up team, and James has packed extra ammo clips, just in case.

The car starts rolling again, Aaron keeping an eye on the road in front of him. About fifteen minutes later, he stops again.

"What, more tracks?" Danny asks, staring out the window.

Aaron nods. "Yeah, not just car tracks though." He opens the door and gets out, quickly followed by Danny, then hunkers down and stares at the ground. Danny joins him, looking down as well, then frowns.

"Foot prints." Danny quickly scans around, taking in the area. "Three men, one of which was kind enough to leave us some DNA." He bends down and picks up a cigarette butt out of the snow, careful to avoid touching the filter. Feeling Aaron's eyes on him, he looks up. "What?"

"Pretty impressive detective work, Danny."

Danny huffs. "What, you mean 'impressive for a white guy'?" He shrugs at Aaron's raised eyebrow. "I get the 'white guy' label a lot on Oahu. As for detecting: it's what you get growing up in a busy household, picking up on signals." He suddenly smiles. "I always was the first one to find the Christmas presents my parents tried to hide from us."

Grinning back at him, Aaron shakes his head. "I wasn't implying anything with regard to you being a pale face." He guffaws at Danny's semi-shocked expression. "Hey, I wasn't the one starting with the name calling. And lots of us natives pretty much suck at trail finding, I'll have you know." Then his face turns serious again. "Did you notice both the car tracks and foot prints go up that way?" Aaron nods his head towards a small, barely visible trail leading off the winding road.

"Yeah, I did, actually," Danny answers, trying to stare down the overgrown trail. He notices some of the branches of the trees closest to it are damaged, as if broken off by something heavy passing by. "What's down there?"

"The cabin," Aaron answers, and Danny feels a new rush of anxiety course through him.

They're getting close.

* * *

He doesn't know how long Rhys has been gone; time is a very relative concept now, measured by how many times he drifts off, and how many times he manages to wake up again. And he knows he's having more and more trouble doing the latter. It's also increasingly difficult to keep track of his own thoughts, to keep making sense.

What bothers him the most, however, is the nausea; or more specifically, its effects. Each bout of his stomach heaving to expel its contents - and all that's left now is just bile - has him gagging from pain, as the violent movement of his body sends shock waves of anguish through his head.

The last time even had him moaning out loud, but he still had enough presence of mind to stuff his face into the sleeping bag, lest he'd be heard. If he were a betting guy, having to place money on whether or not Rhys will be back in time to still find him coherent, to still find him _breathing_, his bet most likely would be placed against himself.

Steve doesn't think he will be able to hang on much longer.

* * *

The ranger station is closed, as Chen Zhu found as he tried the main entrance door. He and the other two men had gone around the building, guns at the ready, to check for any broken windows or forced doors, an indication that their quarry had somehow managed to enter.

Nothing indicated that they had, though.

"They're still out there somewhere, boss," one of the men had said. "What should we do? Go out there looking for them again?"

Chen Zhu had seriously considered the question, the options they still had. Time was running out, as John Yun was expecting a call very soon, most likely had expected to receive it already, that the last loose end had been taken care of.

The whole situation was becoming increasingly frustrating.

On top of everything else, they had heard a car pass by not too long ago, and Chen Zhu was tempted to find out whether it had been heading towards the cabin, as his gut had somehow told him it was. Then again, it could mean facing more adversaries, and he already had his hands full with just the one man carrying an injured person.

He swore, then made a decision.

"No. We stay here, it's the only option they have left now, their only chance of getting out of here."

He settled himself in the front passenger seat of the car, resigned to practice something his grandfather had told him when young. _"You do not need to enter a tiger's den in order to catch it. They, too, become thirsty."_ All he had to do was wait for his quarry to come to him.

While their boss sits and smokes cigarette after cigarette, the other two men roam the area, still looking for signs that the men they are after have been there. While one of them goes to inspect the restrooms off to the side of the station, the other walks towards the beginning of a trail marked by a wooden railing across the parking area.

He never notices the figure of a man quickly ducking underneath the wooden bridge as he makes his way towards him.

* * *

The cabin at the end of the trail is old, and badly maintained. Paint is peeling off its sides, and the wood shed barely visible behind it looks as if it will collapse any second under its burden of snow.

"Nice. I think I'll book my next holiday here," Danny softly quips under his breath, nervously fingering his gun as he gets out of the car. Aaron flashes him a quick grin, drawing his weapon as well. They cautiously advance towards the door, meanwhile taking in the many tracks left in the snow.

Just before they reach the cabin, Aaron stops, frowning. He quickly bends down over one of the tracks, then rises again and motions to Danny that they should move towards the open door. Both men enter with their guns at the ready, but the building appears to be empty.

Except for the body on the floor.

For one moment, one _horrible_ moment which feels to Danny as if it's drawn out into an eternity, in a slow moving, ever-lasting void in which he cannot find enough air, cannot _breathe_, he thinks the dead man is Steve. Fighting to keep his stomach contents down, to keep an almost hysterical scream from _exploding_ out of his mouth, he stumbles towards Aaron, already kneeling on the floor, examining the body.

When he forces himself to study the distorted features - because a bullet to the head, especially from a short distance as appears to be the case here, has a tendency to seriously mess with anybody's looks - and when, despite the dark hair and grayish color of one of the open eyes, he fails to find even the slightest familiar characteristic, instead seeing cheek bones which are too broad and a body which is too hulking and massive, he shakes his head and _finally_ finds enough air again to speak, to answer the unspoken question visible in Aaron's kind, nearly pitying eyes.

"Even though I doubt this guy's own mother would recognize him now, I can safely state that this is not Steve. And thank _God_ for that!" The relief Danny feels is nearly as overwhelming and powerful as the sheer terror was a few moments earlier.

Aaron nods as Danny sinks to his knees on the opposite side of the body, frowning as he takes in the distorted features. After several moments, he looks up into Aaron's eyes.

"Now, I'm not a medical examiner - and said profession would definitely _not_ be on my list of choices because, really, sights like this have a tendency to _seriously_ mess with my stomach every time - I think we can scratch another name from the list; I'm pretty sure this is, or _was_, Archibald Bradley." Danny looks down again as Aaron carefully lifts one of the hands.

"Looks like he was in a fight before he got shot." Aaron looks at the face. "Maybe a struggle for a gun? See, this," he continues, pointing at the speckled skin surrounding the wound underneath the body's chin, "is a contact wound."

Danny nods, looking at the bruised hands, then the injury underneath the chin. "Does seem to fit a scenario of two people fighting for a weapon. Guess Bradley here lost." He looks at Aaron. "Which begs the question: who _won_ ?"

Aaron gets up, looks around and then moves towards the far corner of the room. "Danny ..." He looks over his shoulder. "There's more blood here."

Rushing over to join him, Danny sucks in his breath as he sees the blood soaked sheets, the stained pillow. His over-imaginative, negatively-wired brain immediately wants him to rush to conclusions, yelling at him that _God! Steve __**is**__ dead after all!_ but he forces it to shut up, instead willing himself to carefully take in the details, to _analyze_ before he _concludes_.

Taking in the rumpled bed, the sheets and blankets almost thrown clear of the mattress, his wandering eyes come to rest on the overturned tray on the floor, some bloodied pieces of cloth next to it. _A-hah, see?_ the more analytical and professional part of his brain chirps, _you don't treat __**dead**__ people for injuries_! The next moment he almost jumps out of his skin when a hand falls on his shoulder.

"Sorry Danny ... you seemed a bit lost in thoughts there," Aaron smiles at him. "By the way, there's plenty of evidence here that somebody looked after Steve - if it _was_ Steve, but again, too many coincidences to think otherwise - in a really professional manner. And there's the track I found outside."

Danny remembers Aaron stopping to look at the ground just before they entered the cabin. "What about it?" He's just about to turn away from the mattress when his eye catches the bullet lodged in the wall just above it. "Hey, hang on." Hunching down over the mattress to get a better look, he finds his hand resting on the bloodied pillow, and for one _crazy_ second he thinks _'This is the closest I've come to touching Steve in weeks!_'

His eyes mist over and he shakes his head. This is not the time to lose it. Looking through blurry eyes Danny blinks at the bullet, trying to determine the caliber. A large hand weapon, he thinks. "So what do you think happened here?" he asks while turning back to Aaron. "And what about that track outside?"

Aaron scrutinizes him for a moment, and Danny knows that his emotions are written all over his face. His fear for Steve's safety, his smoldering anger at what's been done to him, his anxiety of wanting to _find_ Steve. However, he can tell by Aaron's face that the man understands it all, that he's not judged for it.

"I think our combined hypothesis that Bradley wanted to remove the reason for being on the Triad's hit list, to remove _Steve_, is pretty accurate." He motions to the scene around them. "I also think that whomever was looking after Steve _seriously_ objected to Bradley's plan." Aaron nods at the bed. "Bradley looks to have managed to shoot either Steve or the other person - my bet, unfortunately, is that it was Steve - but I don't think he succeeded in killing him."

He motions to Danny to follow him outside, then points at the track that caught his attention earlier.

"See this? These tracks were left by somebody carrying something heavy. Look how much deeper they are than the ones following them, and how they're closer together." Aaron looks at Danny. "I think your friend was definitely injured, both earlier and possibly as a result of Bradley's actions, but that he was still alive and somebody has been trying to get him out of here, get him to safety."

Aaron's face takes on a more serious look. "It also appears as if they were followed, presumably by the Triad's men."

Danny looks at him. "And you say _my_ detective skills are impressive?" He shakes his head, then looks at the tracks again, his eyes following them back towards the door of the cabin. There are numerous tracks both going towards and moving away from the wooden hovell.

"Almost looks like Grand Central Station here; it's been a pretty busy day for a place as remote as this." Aaron nods at him, then starts to walk along the deeper tracks, heading towards the back of the allotment. Danny follows suit, bowing to the other man's superior skills in finding the details in these natural surroundings.

He's mentally praying that the people following Steve and his rescuer haven't managed to reach their objective. Haven't found Steve. Haven't killed him after all.

He can only hope.

* * *

Rhys is getting stiff from crouching underneath the bridge, but he doesn't dare move from his cramped position. The two men keep checking the area, and even though there is plenty of foliage nearby to hide in, the tracks he will leave in the snow getting there will give him away.

Just for a second, just as the man was moving over the bridge towards the forest, Rhys thought he had been caught as the man stopped, thought he might have seen the tracks he'd left as he scooted underneath the wooden structure.

Fortunately, though, the man didn't seem to be very knowledgeable about what were and were not natural marks, and Rhys had been able to breathe a silent sigh of relief as the man moved on without finding hiding place.

He's torn between trying to make it back to Steve and staying here, staying to see if he might get a chance to enter the building, to try and alert outside help so he can get _Steve _the help he knows he needs badly.

For now, though, he doesn't have any choice but to wait until he can move either way, so he settled in as well as circumstances allow and hopes things will swing in his favor soon.

* * *

There's good news. And there's bad news.

The good news is that he has stopped vomiting, that his stomach has finally been emptied so completely and thoroughly that his body no longer has the urge to eject its contents. Which means his head at least no longer is tormented by the violent motion of being sick.

The bad news is that all he can do now is just lay there, shivering, teeth chattering so loudly that he's sure the enamel has broken into a million tiny fragments, the constant motion of his jaws resulting in sharp little echoes of pain in his head.

Another bad thing is that he seems to have lost the plot.

He vaguely remembers that somebody is out to kill him. Actually, that's pretty much _all_ he remembers. The rest of the story, the circumstances which have caused him to end up lying in some dark, cold and drafty cave - and was it really a cave? - are just a haze of seemingly unrelated images which swirl through his mind, images which he can't connect, can't make _sense_ of.

Scooting down even further into the sleeping bag, desperate to find some warmth, anxious to relieve the constant cold which cause his teeth to chatter and his head to ache, he feels himself drift off again.

At least, he hopes, he won't feel the pain that way.

* * *

They've followed the separate tracks, crossing and following several creeks, until Danny has completely lost all sense of direction. "Smart man" Aaron had said when they'd found the first evidence of how Steve's rescuer had tried shaking off their pursuers by entering a creek. They'd also discovered that the ruse hadn't worked, that the clean-up team had managed to discover their trail again.

When they reach a spot in the forest where the foliage seemed less dense, Aaron points to the left. "The road is just over there." He looks at Danny. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I think they might be headed for the ranger station we passed earlier on. And remember those foot prints we saw at the beginning of the trail leading up to the cabin?"

Danny nods, entirely too exhausted to speak, his lack of sleep, the flight to the mainland and the drive to Aberdeen finally catching up with him.

"I think that our Triad guys haven't managed to find them in these woods and come to the same conclusion as well. Those tracks were leading both to and from the cabin." He cocks his head, taking in Danny's stance, the way he's leaning forward, hands resting on his thighs. "And to be completely honest, I don't think you can go on much further."

Danny huffs at that. "That's where you're wrong, Detective James. I will go on as long as it takes, and as _far_ as it will take me in order to find Steve!" He stands up straight, only for his knee - and _damn_ that uncooperative piece of physical hardware - to nearly give out on him, causing him to groan.

"I don't doubt your words, Danny," Aaron states matter-of-factly, then pointedly looks at Danny's knee, "but I have noticed your limp a while back already, and I doubt you will be doing either Steve or yourself any favors if you continue to abuse it." His voice sounds soft and compassionate when he continues. "I know, trust me, I _know_ how badly you want to find your friend, but this is not going to end well if we keep walking."

Sighing, Danny thinks for a moment, then nods. "You're right. So ... what's the plan then?"

"Let's go check out the ranger station, see if they've made it that far. If not, we can go from there." Aaron points to the left again. "If we go that way, we'll avoid having to go all the way back through the forest again. This will be both shorter and easier on your knee."

Danny nods at him appreciatively, then scoops together his last energy and follows him as Aaron starts walking again.

* * *

"_Nà shì shénme, tīng!_" One of the men holds up a hand, cocking his head, then rushes over to Chen Zhu, still sitting in the car. "Boss, there's a car coming this way!" The men get out their guns, then look at their boss for instructions.

"Come, this way," Chen Zhu motions, then heads towards the small building containing the restrooms. They quietly stand inside the entrance, weapons at the ready, tense with anticipation. Chen Zhu holds up a warning finger for them to be quiet as they watch the car coming up to the ranger station.

Frowning, Chen Zhu looks at the two men emerging from the car, walking to the main entrance. It's definitely not his lucky day, just when he needs luck to finally smile on him for a change.

The two men are very obviously cops.

* * *

"Closed. Just as I thought," says Aaron, and he throws a glance back at Danny; his limp is now more pronounced than ever, and his features are drawn with exhaustion and disappointment. Just as he's about to tell the Jersey detective that at least they can take a breather here, sit down at one of the picnic tables and rest for a while before coming up with a new plan, he catches a flash off to his right.

"Down!" Aaron screams at Danny just before the first of several shots ring out. Danny drops to the ground, drawing his gun as he goes down, then shoots a quick glance over to Aaron. _Shit_ ! The other detective is slumped against the side of the building, doing his best to hold on to his weapon as one hand tries to stem the blood flowing from his upper arm.

Looking over in the direction the shots have come from, Danny sees an opportunity as a dark head pops out from the entrance to what appears to be the restrooms. Quickly squeezing off a round, he listens to a short scream with grim satisfaction, then ducks behind the car again as more shots are fired in his direction.

"You OK?" he yells at Aaron.

He hears the barely controlled pain and weariness in the other man's voice as he answers, "I'll live ... I think." before quickly popping up and firing in the direction of the small wooden building again. How many men are there? He knows he's taken one out already, and just on the off-chance of evening out the odds, he fires off another round of shots, stopping only when he runs out of ammunition.

Just as he realizes that _Aaron_ carries the spare ammo clips, and that Aaron no longer looks like he's conscious - hell, may not even be _alive_ anymore for all he can see - there's something pressing to the back of his head. Something familiar, something which definitely doesn't rank on Danny's favorites list.

"You picked a bad time to stop here, cop," a low and definitely unfriendly voice says behind him while a hand reaches across to relieve him of his weapon. "And I really don't appreciate the fact that you've taken out both my men."

_Oh good_, thinks Danny, _at least I got two of them._ "Yeah? Well I don't appreciate _you_ guys first abducting and then hunting down my _partner_!" The snide remark earns him a wallop with the guy's gun, and for a moment he just sees stars, leaning over on both hands to try and keep the ground down, as it looks as if it's about to eagerly rush up and meet him.

"I really don't care whether I kill one cop, or two or three," the voice growls behind him, and Danny knows he's about to catch a bullet.

'_So this is how it ends,'_ he thinks, and feels an all-encompassing sadness at never seeing Grace again, at never having seen _Steve_ again. _'I'm sorry, Steven. I acted too late. I let you down.'_ and he feels tears starting to course down his face, his whole being suffused with grief and anger at not being able to keep his promise to both his daughter and his best friend, his promise of bringing Steve home.

He cringes at the sound of a shot, but is astounded at not feeling any pain, at not experiencing that much-hated but well-known sensation of being hit by a sledgehammer. When things remain quiet, he slowly turns around, his eyes taking in the slumped figure of the man who just seconds before was on the verge of blowing his brains out.

"You OK man?"

Whipping around, Danny watches a tall, muscular man - and oh _boy_ this guy must be familiar with the usual taunts of 'copper knob' and 'jolly ginger giant', because his hair is a fiery auburn color, nearly carroty red! - walking towards him, a concerned and serious look on his face.

"Ehm, yeah, think so," Danny manages to mumble, then looks at Aaron. "Not too sure about my friend there, though." He hobbles after the tall red head, who is quickly walking over to Aaron and then kneels down next to him, feeling for a pulse, then examining his arm.

"You got a first aid kit in that car?" The red head glances at Danny over his shoulder, meanwhile applying pressure to the wound in Aaron's arm. Danny just stares at him, still dazed from both the unexpected shoot-out and the gun whipping. The man now fully turns around, scrutinizing Danny. "Here, hang on; you apply pressure - right here - and I'll check for a first aid kit."

It takes the man just a few moments to rummage first through the glove compartment and then through the trunk of Aaron's car, coming back minutes later with a well-stocked first aid kit. Danny is in awe of the speed and professionalism with which the man first disinfects, then bandages Aaron's arm, then utters a sigh of relief as Aaron slowly opens his eyes.

"Hey, don't they ever tell you Aberdeen detectives that sleeping on the job while your _guest_ is getting shot at is not a cool thing to do?" Danny winks at Aaron, who just stares at him with bleary eyes, then looks at the red head hunkered down next to him. "Who ... are you?"

The man smiles at Aaron, then looks at Danny. "My name is Rhys Evans. I just happened to be i the neighborhood I guess." Something in the way this Evans guy says that feels a little off to Danny, but he decides to ignore it for now, his head currently not too keen on trying to analyze things. He sticks out is hand, and is somewhat taken by surprise when Evans accepts it and proceeds to pull him towards him, taking a closer look at the lump which has formed on the back of his skull.

Nodding as if satisfied, Evans lets go of a now completely flabbergasted Danny.

"What are you, a doctor or something?" Danny manages to stutter, thinking that the day possibly can't get any weirder and stranger than it has been. The guy smiles, his eyes crinkling into little laugh lines at the corners. "Or something. So what are you guys doing here?" He looks first at Aaron, who looks pointedly at Danny, as if leaving the decision to tell or remain mum about their objective solely up to him.

Danny sighs, then decides to just get straight to the point. "We're looking for my partner who got abducted and, as far as we have been able to put together, is held here somewhere in the area."

A cold, _cold_ hand grips Danny's heart, squeezing it firmly as he watches Evans go almost as white as the snow on the ground, bleaching all the color from his face. "What ... _what?!_" Danny almost barks, leaning forward as he grips the man by the arm. "You _know_ something about that? You do, don't you!" He's now shaking Evans like a Jack Russell shakes a rat, his fingers digging into the man's arm.

Evans draws in a shuddering breath, staring at Danny as if he can't believe what he just said, then softly asks: "What's your partner's name?"

"McGarrett," answers Danny, then frowns as Evans shakes his head.

"What's his _first_ name?"

Still frowning, Danny says "Steve," and then decides that he was _wrong_, that somebody just turned the strangeness dial of this day all the way up from just plain 'weird' to in_fucking_comprehensible! Because Evans has just started grinning like a loon, and is clasping Danny on the shoulder like they've been old buddies for decades, and Danny is just about to show the guy how much he does _not_ appreciate being cuddled by a total stranger when the guy's next words just blow him away, just literally _catapult_ him off the face of the earth.

"You're Steve's friend with the baby-blue eyes! Man, is he gonna be _happy_ when he finds out you're not dead after all!"


End file.
